


Fidelius

by femme4jack, Merfilly



Series: Patronus-Verse (Patronus, Fidelius, Outtakes and Related Stories) [3]
Category: Transformers (Bay Movies)
Genre: Fix-It, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-04
Updated: 2012-01-30
Packaged: 2017-10-25 17:16:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 39,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/272793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femme4jack/pseuds/femme4jack, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Fidelius: a complex and powerful Charm that takes a specific piece of information and implants it into a being's soul.</i></p><p>How does an ancient, robotic being decide what and how to remember what is important? How does a fratricidal, seemingly never-ending war affect what memories are kept readily accessible?  What happens when the memories one needs the most in order to survive and save others are not the same as the ones which make life worth living?</p><p>A prequel and sequel to Patronus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mmouse15](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmouse15/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Patronus](https://archiveofourown.org/works/220321) by [femme4jack](https://archiveofourown.org/users/femme4jack/pseuds/femme4jack), [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly). 



> **Content Warnings:** Explicit Intimacy (Spark, Tactile, PnP), very brief references to immature forms of robotic life and spark creation through budding
> 
>  **Acknowledgments:** Written for Mmouse15 for her winning bid on FandomAid's Help Somalia Auction at livejournal. Thank you, Mitzi! So much gratitude to Merfilly for coauthoring the original story with me, and for giving me the encouragement to continue, including much help with plotting. It won't be the same going solo.
> 
>  **Notes:** The prologue takes place at the "fade to black" point in [ch. 10 of Patronus](http://archiveofourown.org/works/220321/chapters/382553). Most of the remainder of the story will take place in the past

_Fidelius: a complex and powerful Charm that takes a specific piece of information and implants it into a being's soul._

 _Fidelis: Latin for faithful or loyal._

  


* * *

Ratchet lay atop of the dark mech, bathing in the hungry, willful fields spinning off Patronus's freely exposed spark. Seeing the spark itself was such a comforting-arousing sight. His own spark spun fast in his chest in anticipation, his fields surging eagerly to contain and be enveloped by the one who knew him best: his shelter, haven and resting place, as the humans would say. His processors might still have their doubts that this was truly Ironhide, but his spark had no such compunctions, pulsing with that stretching-aching need of a bond to be renewed.

He deliberately had not yet opened his own plates. He prided himself, for better or worse, in being able to resist the demands of his spark. It wasn't hesitation or doubt, though he did have those. Whoever Ironhide now was, there would be both loss and gain, joy and sorrow in the renewal of their bond.

No, it wasn't hesitation. There was just so much to take in as he familiarized himself with the not quite-so bulky frame that was almost painfully new. So new, in fact, that his olfactory sensors could still trace the remnant of the rich solutions used in the growth tanks less than half a year earlier, and the subtle aroma of protomass only recently differentiated and coded. It was their species's own version of either the new car smell or new baby smell, depending on how one chose to look at it.

Not that Patronus was off-gassing Volatile Organic Compounds, Ratchet thought, bemused at the strangeness of humanity's predilections for things that were toxic to them. Nor that the reformatted mech had truly been a sparkling (or that sparklings were in any way equivalent to helpless infant mammals whose chemistry elicited genetically coded bonding behavior on the part of adult caretakers). But it was so different than the molecules he was accustomed to drawing past his keen medical sensors. Ironhide had already been considered... well... not ancient, but certainly on the well-seasoned-headed-toward-rusty side when they'd first met, so long ago. Could this really be the same mech who had been his anchor through thousands of vorns (thousands of deaths)?

The frame did not a mech make. Ratchet had certainly constructed enough new ones over the eons to be certain of this. But Ironhide had lost far more than his frame to Sentinel's madness. There was usually at least _something_ left of the protoform, core coding and unique, spark-conditioned nanites to stick in the growth tank as a base for a partial reformat. Absolute reformats, like Ironhide's, had always been considered a brand new person. The relationship between spark, bonds, memory core, and deep coding were complex enough that not even the greatest scientific processors fully understood just what went into forming the personality matrix that made a mech a unique person, different from other who might share the same frame and code.

Patronus insisted he was Ironhide. Could Patronus even know what it meant to claim that?

 _Not hesitating,_ Ratchet inwardly claimed. _Not at all. Just... exploring... relearning._

::What the slag are you waiting for? Don't tell me you are so old you forgot how to do this?:: Patronus's glyphs were full of humorous, teasing modifiers, as though he knew exactly what Ratchet was up to.

::Old, hmm? That old spark of yours really is getting a kick out of suddenly being the kid around here. I just happen to enjoy taking my time,:: Ratchet said, deliberately kicking his olfactory fans up a notch to take another, obvious whiff. Ah, there it was. The familiar comfort of another, newer scent, but one that was indubitably Ironhide. Distinctly organic molecules from his human family imbued every part of him. The Lennoxes were just as much a part of that frame as the volatile chemicals that made up the ammunition he produced internally. Patronus's field teeked sharply of their energies as well, a bond that had still been brand new, by their reckoning, when the events of DC had happened. A bond that was changing him in the ways that all such bonds did, and would continue to change the cohort, as well, as those energies were shared.

It was a bond so new it should have severed in the trauma of Ironhide's disintegration. Even the cohort bonds could have, or rather, should have severed. From everything Ratchet had been able to glean from Sentinel's weapon, it was designed to sever the coding of such bonds, leaving a blank slate upon which he could build whatever he wished. The nanoviral tech had been Sentinel's cold, horrible logic at work in a universe bereft of the Allspark, and in which the war wouldn't wait for the newly budded to grow and mature enough to handle a warrior's frame and coding. But Ironhide had such a stubborn old spark. He somehow had held on. And that, in itself, was enough to convince Ratchet of just who was making the impatient noises underneath him. His thoughts had taken all of a few human seconds. But human seconds were long when it came to the desires of the spark.

::You and your chemo-receptors,:: Patronus growled over their private channel. ::Seriously, medic, open up and quit sniffing me like that rodent Sam keeps.:: Ironhide ran his digits along Ratchet's sides, finding the keen sensors that helped the medic keep a secondary reading on his patients' fields. His touches concentrated on those, mischief in his optics as Ratchet's energies swirled in response.

::You want to play it that way? I thought you were anxious to touch my spark,:: Ratchet teased.

Patronus's fingers scraped the sensors harder on their journey toward the even more sensitive areas underneath the lateral plating of Ratchet's vivid green armor. ::What I want is for you to quit sniffing and thinking and actually DO something,:: he growled, tugging hard on a cable he knew, from the scant memories he'd integrated, would get a response.

Ratchet's field flared hard. ::Careful what you wish for,:: he warned as he turned his experience against the young-old mech below him. Medical manipulators extended from the digits and servos still holding him up and over Patronus's frame, and slithered into the open chest to touch everything but the spark chamber, winding around sensitive conduits and sending a stimulating charge directly into his longtime lover's brand new, overclocked systems.

The dark mech's optics flashed and his entire frame expanded and went rigid as an overload crashed into him completely by surprise. It was obvious from the flare of his field that it was almost as frustrating as it was pleasurable.

::What the slag are you doing! Didn't want to fragging overload until we were joined!:: Patronus snapped with the precise tone and glyphs Ironhide would have used.

::Just reminding you of who's in charge,:: Ratchet said smugly. ::One of the many things you've forgotten that I'll have to teach you again.::

::The slag you will!:: Patronus spat back, grabbing on to Ratchet's shoulders in an attempt to roll them both over.

::I have so many redundancies and extra equipment in my frame that I outmassed you even before your reformat, Patronus:: Ratchet continued casually, his frame firm and refusing to move no matter how hard Patronus pushed. ::Not to mention that I'm fully trained in keeping even my largest patients subdued. Besides, I needed to see you overload, and feel you get fragged off.::

::And why in the Pit is that?:: Patronus asked sharply, even as his motor systems whined and groaned with the effort.

::Hush, you. Don't wake Mikaela and Prime. Feeling you fragged off that I made you come first, as much as anything you say, tells me that you are still you, Ironhide,:: Ratchet responded softly, his chestplates finally cracking open, revealing the brilliant and warm light within.

The dark mech abruptly stopped struggling, his field flaring with awe and desire rather than frustration. ::Oh Primus, Ratchet.:: The tone suddenly was all Patronus again, youthful and eager, but also slightly uncertain and afraid.

Ratchet locked his shoulder and elbow joints, keeping himself far enough above the obsidian mech so that their coronal tendrils could not quite touch, extending his prehensile cables, connectors tapping against his lover's port covers.

::Spark memory is different than core files,:: Ratchet explained patiently despite his own need which, if he allowed it, would have him crashing their sparks together. The young mech was trembling below him, thrusting his chest upward, desperate to complete what he was aching for, despite the fear in his field. ::I'll show you both, together, at least at first, so let me plug in. Sparks will take over soon enough as we merge. Plugging in has a secondary purpose, though. I'm going to take over your motor functions, so I can control the pace. Your spark has done this before, but has also experienced massive trauma since the last time. I want to take the merge very slow, give you time to adjust at each stage before we complete it.::

::Whatever, slag, please Ratchet! I need this... need you.:: Patronus's data ports were already open, eager for the connection, which Ratchet immediately gave him, feeling the firewalls melt underneath his touch, revealing a swirl of desperate need and powerfully stubborn determination.

~Easy, I'm here. You have me,~ Ratchet soothe. Unlike when he was plugged in as medic, he allowed his own thoughts and emotions to mingle, and felt Ironhide's... and yes, it was important, he realized, to use that designation... felt Ironhide's emotions and thoughts latch onto his own, anchoring himself. Signaling for permission, and receiving it, Ratchet deftly took control of his cohort-mate's motor functions, and felt the frame below him go still.

Then Ratchet keyed up the datafiles, including some of the very oldest that were tagged with Ironhide's designation and kept easily accessible and uncompressed in his primary data core crystals. They were memories that Ratchet had been accessing repeatedly both to grieve and comfort himself as he had painstakingly created the new frame below him. Memories he had thought would never again truly belong the spark now reaching for his.

Many were co-memories, precious ones which he and Ironhide had long ago decided to blend, shared repeatedly during merges to reanchor themselves over the vorns, to remember who they were when the horrors of war threatened to make them forget and become only machines and functions.

Ironhide's spark, not controlled by motor function coding, but rather in the thrall of a bond desperate to be renewed, flared outward at the first taste of memory, coronal fingers reaching farther than any should be able to until one finally brushed a tendril reaching back.

Ratchet heard himself whine and abruptly shut off his vocal modulator to preserve his patients' recharge. But within their shared swirl of thought-feeling-sensation-data, he was suddenly gibbering senselessly at the sheer perfection of the simple caress, tendril-to-tendril, memories of a thousand other merges rapidly flashing by and eagerly absorbed by the mech underneath him.

Even as Ironhide had anchored to him, Ratchet now effortlessly anchored himself to Ironhide. Yes! The touch of that ancient spark, combined with what Ratchet could feel so clearly in his lover's processors, was _Ironhide_ , without a doubt. Despite feeling so young and lacking so much in experience and memory that had made the guardian who he was.

Joy and relief blossomed between them as Ratchet lowered himself, sinking into a familiar and protective unconditional acceptance he had never dared hope to feel again. On instinct deeper than his own innate medical caution, he released his lover's motor control. This was Ironhide. _Ironhide!_ He did not have to be careful or in control.

Dark arms wrapped around him and pulled him down the rest of the way in a fierce embrace. The spark spinning into his own reached hungrily for the memories he was sharing, because it _knew_ those memories, felt them deeply though his integrated data storage was bereft of them. Deep within Ironhide's spark, they were still present and safely kept, even if conscious processing could not access them. But with Ratchet's memories spilling into Ironhide's data core, recognition lit up and the spark matched its priceless treasures to the datafiles that were being hungrily devoured.

Together they remembered.


	2. Obliviate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ratchet shares with Patronus some of his memories prior to his reformat as a battlefield medic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Content Notes:** Chapter Rating is T (PG-13). Unnamed character death, innuendo, non-explicit spark merge, refers to genocide of unnamed alien species, mild violence and gore.
> 
>  **Continuity Note:** Bayverse - Patronus AU, we are using some elements from both the Titan and IDW Movieverse Comic Prequels, but are not bound to either.
> 
>  **In other news:** Merfilly is now co-authoring!!!! (Femme is ecstatic about this, because it felt so sad and lonely writing this alone) {Filly thinks Femme is silly, and was doing fine on her own}(but it will be better with both of us, says Femme). Vox's frame-class is upper caste mini-con (human-sized, high processing power, very little armor, elegant, known for persuasive verbal skills).

_Obliviate - A spell used to erase some or all memories from an individual's mind._

Vox walked briskly away from the High Council Tower, disgust and frustration bleeding from his field. It didn't matter what he said, what Optimus said. They were blind to the danger Megatron had become, just as they had been blind to the danger of their own actions (and lack of action) in the previous vorns.

Megatron had taken them to war. To war! And the masses were, literally, consuming the spoils of a planet whose inhabitants he had destroyed on their behalf. It had been another mechanoid species, similar to their own. What might they have learned had they sought peace and understanding rather than war?

Vox did not believe these aliens had supposedly attacked the AllSpark Temple in Simfur. It was too convenient an excuse, but had been all the excuse Megatron had needed to take full control of the military. After vorns of advocating a more expansionist policy, it had to have been a set up. Now, the Council did not dare express dissatisfaction with Megatron's actions. Not with mecha suddenly having access to fuel and minerals they had been lacking, and chanting Megatron's designation in praise.

With Optimus offworld, dealing with the diplomatic fallout of Cybertron's recent aggression, the High Council of Ancients had privately censured their Lord High Protector, reminding him that all decisions were to be ratified by them. He had laughed and said they were a weak relic that he, for now, allowed to function out of a respect for the past that was growing thin.

And perhaps he was right. For so many vorns, the High Council had ignored the growing shortage of energon and dealt with the ensuing unrest with a brutality that was in complete contradiction to their pacifist ideals.

Optimus had sought to change the council from within, to appeal to the best in their natures and transform the governing body into one that would be responsive to the needs of all Cybertronians rather than the consolidation of their own power. But while his words were stirring, the stagnation was too deep.

Despite the private appeals from his co-ruler, Optimus had not yet sought to overthrow them. He had felt it an unsafe precedent, and that having the co-rulers' decisions ratified by a supposedly democratic structure was an important check against the corruption of power.

But what if that body were, itself, corrupt? Or irrelevant, as Megatron argued.

The Council clearly viewed their Prime and Lord High Protector as a figureheads to do their bidding, another tool with which to mollify the masses. Had that been why Sentinel had been so eager to give up the mantel of Prime and take on the Council's leadership? He believed that was where the true power lay?

It was one thing Vox agreed with Megatron on, and had argued passionately for in private with Optimus. Cybertron needed a true Prime and Lord High Protector, not tools of a Council who could not see beyond its own interests.

Optimus had felt overthrowing the council would plunge the planet into Civil War.

Vox no longer believed that was preventable, no matter what action they took. Megatron was taking power for himself, supposedly for the sake of those who were suffering, and using it as an excuse to take the might and glory of Cybertron to the stars, to conquer and take what he argued was rightfully theirs. Optimus could not allow that.

The only thing that was clear to Vox was that as the Prime's liaison to the council, he no longer served a purpose. War was coming. Megatron would either bring war upon them by being far too aggressive toward neighboring systems, or it would break out on the planet itself when it became clear that the Prime and Lord High Protector were no longer functioning as a ruling dyad. He was suspicious that Megatron would be getting his desire, either option.

Vox was quite certain he did not have the frame to survive a war. Very few of his frame-class would, and he was under no illusions that Megatron would protect those who were not designed for battle. His engineering subfunction would at least make him useful for a time. Perhaps he could download some additional engineering modules and assist the medics who would have their servos full.

That was, if Megatron did not use Prime's absence to take out those who supported him. Thus far, Megatron had been ever the faithful Protector, always in support of his brother despite their vocal differences. Vox knew, with this latest move, that something had changed. The precarious balance had been lost.

As he approached Prime's residence in order to make his report over their secured line, Ironhide himself was guarding, giving the appearance that Optimus was present and in seclusion, communing with the AllSpark.

Vox would not put it past Megatron having ordered the walking cannon to take him out. It would be simple. All the war machine would have to do is step on him. Ironhide's optics narrowed, giving the liaison a searching scan.

"Prime's unavailable," Ironhide said, deliberately being balky at the smaller mech. The warrior had no love for those who didn't understand the need to get their digits dirty.

"I am well aware he is meditating," Vox said sharply, fighting the desire to add _you glitch_. It was not the time to be goading a warbuild. They seemed almost universally aroused by recent developments, and Vox questioned whether most could see beyond their own aggressive coding. "Prime ordered me to make a report of the Council proceedings. You know I have full access to his suites."

Ironhide crossed his arms across his broad chest, weapon ports slightly open in the heavy armor. "Seems that if I let you in there, I'd be violating my orders to keep him from being disturbed," the warrior said, deciding that he could enjoy baiting the political mech to alleviate some of his boredom on this watch. Slag those glitch-taken twins for being off on other duties for their Prime.

Vox cycled his vents in exasperation. If Ironhide chose not to let him enter, it was not like he had any means of exerting his will in the matter, other than a complaint to Prime when he returned. Optimus trusted Ironhide like he would trust a member of his own cohort, despite the warrior's unfailing loyalty to his commander. Perhaps appealing to his better nature... if he had one.

Switching to an encrypted comm channel, he attempted to use the most inoffensive glyph structure he was capable of. ::We both know our Prime is not present. You have been ordered to guard, I have been ordered to make my report. Why make this orn any more difficult than it needs to be?::

::Why not?:: Ironhide's optics glinted a little. ::It's not like you ever really have to work at anything, little mech.:: He leaned in toward Vox's faceplates, looming with all his bulk. ::All talk, never any action.::

Vox did not flinch, despite his keen awareness of just how easy it would be for the warrior to turn that bulk toward violence. ::Oh? Is that what this is about? You are in need of action? I was not aware you had a thing for mini-cons. But then again, with that surly field of yours, perhaps you're having a difficult time finding partners of your own build to take a roll with.::

Ironhide laughed out loud at that. ::Oh, you just wish you could climb up my frame, little mech. I'd show you what those plugs of yours are supposed to be used for,:: the warrior retorted. He did, however, step to one side, too amused to continue blocking when Vox had actually pushed back at him.

Vox gave a prim, stately bow to the warrior. ::You are the one who doesn't know what he's missing,:: he couldn't keep himself from transmitting as he passed.

* * *

 _Present_

Patronus felt himself spiraling away from the merge, his memories inside himself, the ones he held spark-deep, rejecting these memories he was finding in Ratchet. They felt off-balance to him, as if they were not even fully integrated inside Ratchet's core. ~What... who...~ His confusion was fighting the tide of their merge, breaking the union around the edges.

He could see himself in Ironhide, but who was Vox? And why was Ratchet showing him this? He had no idea that even as Ironhide, he would have been hard-pressed to remember Vox as anything but a fact, not an imprinted memory.

He felt patient amusement welling up in the spark touching his own. ~I held on to that one to remind myself that when you're being an insufferable aft, there is more going on than just you being an insufferable aft, as Vox normally assumed. He was a product of his caste and class, and did not have much use for warbuilds. Nor you for politicians, obviously. But at that point, you were torn at spark between conflicted loyalty codes, so your aftly nature is understandable.~

Patronus pushed back into that warmth, that solid connection that was part of his very being at this level of quantum mechanics. His energies coiled as his processor worked at the mystery, trying to see why Ratchet would have someone else's memories...

~You were a mini?~ Patronus asked in shock. ~But....~ He patently did not understand, missing too many pieces.

~There is a reason I was so certain you would no longer be Ironhide after a full reformat. A very personal reason, because clearly I am not Vox. I have some of his memories in my secondary core, to use for reference, along with those of several medics whose skills I needed. But they are not my memories.~

Patronus considered that, then swept back into the merge with the full thrust of his love and need for Ratchet, letting that which he understood speak for him now. Ratchet might have been this other mech, and lost that in becoming Ratchet, but Ironhide was here now, even if it was beneath the newer veneer of Patronus's remaking.

* * *

Ironhide was calling out orders on multiple frequencies, trying to keep any more mechs from being lost in this rag-tag attempt to defend the outpost. His bull-roar of a voice lashed out as he saw guided ordinance incoming on top of one asset they could not afford to lose.

"GET DOWN!"

Knowing the mech he was yelling at was not going to move near fast enough, the durable warrior threw himself forward at full speed, bracing for impact and raising both arms to fire at the missile in a desperate maneuver to detonate it prior to impact. He stood between the enemy and the downed warrior keeping the mini-con tied to this lost cause, praying he had the firepower to do what was necessary.

Some benign fate listened, as the missile exploded far enough out that the blast wave only peeled paint, and pushed Ironhide a few meters. "Medic, we are LEAVING!" he bellowed, coming back to bodily move the mech if necessary.

"He isn't stable enough for transport! We have to wait for a real medic to come!" the mini-con shouted back. Nearly his entire frame was within the downed warrior's blasted, unrecognizable chassis, his tiny digits and a multitude of cables frantically at work. He was feeding energy into the guttering spark, which was pulling from his systems at dangerous levels. He did not have the skills to stabilize it enough to move on to the fractured chamber and the cascade of system failures.

"He's already lost, mech!" Ironhide growled, moving rapidly and grabbing the mini by the more slender waist to pull him free. "Disengage! We cannot lose you as well!"

"Frag you!" the mini shouted even as his cables withdrew into his frame, which was beginning to seize from the energy drain he had subjected it to.

"Like Pits!" Ironhide snapped, pulling and situating the smaller mech between his frame and one arm. This allowed him to blast a shot off at an attacker getting too close, and for a moment, Ironhide looked like he would blast the downed warrior too. The spark gave a final guttering crackle, though, and the light faded completely, saving the need for a mercy shot.

"Oh slag no!" the mini howled, his sensors telling him what his optics could not see because of his angle as Ironhide's pounding pedes took them away from the lost mech, not registering the orders the massive warrior was issuing on multiple frequencies as he called a retreat. He was only aware of the energon coating his frame and a sick pain in his spark at the loss.

"Hold on to me, you slagging pain in my cables," Ironhide growled at the medic... basic or not, the only one close enough for any of his mechs. "I'm not losing any more than I already did on this battle! That includes your own aft!"

Vox didn't speak, but Ironhide felt the mini-con grip on to his lateral cabling, enabling him unhindered use of both of his arms. That was what Ironhide needed, as he used his superior firepower to open a corridor between the lines of the enemy, so they could actually get through to safety.

* * *

Ironhide was outwardly stoic when he later heard Prime arguing with his former liaison after they managed to reach the relative safety of their temporary headquarters. But he could not help but to focus on the heated words coming from both parties.

"You cannot afford sentimentality, Prime," Vox said from where he stood on Prime's large desk. "I was useful as a politician. Now, I am a liability. Engineering has already established I'm not suited to be a symbiont, and I will never be a full medic without a complete reformat. We need to do this while we still have the engineers and resources, while Megatron is busy consolidating his hold on the south."

Optimus Prime stared at his liaison, still convinced this was some form of suicidal madness. "Vox, I cannot conscience what you are suggesting!" he insisted. "You have more talent than you give yourself credit for. Once we finish this war, your talents will be needed as you are!"

"I cannot conscience remaining as I am when there is an opportunity to be someone who can actually save sparks, and protect them while I'm trying to save them. I could not even assist with moving the mech we lost, even if I'd had the skill to stabilize him!" Vox suddenly turned toward Ironhide. "How often do you have to protect me when you could be focusing on far more vital efforts?"

Ironhide, who really ought not to have listened so fully, looked at his Prime, the mech he'd protected for so long that it had actually outweighed the loyalty coding to his superior officer enough for Ironhide to make the hard choices when war came. "Optimus, we need medics. We need ones who have the spark to actually get in and be right there with us on the field. Vox may be a slagging pain in my cables, but he's got that spark, got that drive, and... I can't keep my optics on him near as much as I have already. It cost us." Ironhide was blunt. "That last fight? I should have been further out on the field, not hanging back where I could shelter him if he needed it."

"Optimus," Vox said, before the Prime he had served so loyally on the Council could give his next objection. "My entire cohort is gone. As a mini-con unsuited to bond as as symbiont, I'm going to be gone before this war ends, because I'm certainly not going into hiding while others fight to keep me safe. Let me make something of myself that could actually make a difference. I would online as a combat medic, with the training to actually do what I feel sparked to do."

Optimus shook his helm on that, as if finding an argument Vox could not refute. "Sparked. Vox, you were sparked as a mini. The ancient designs for combat medics are nearly the size of Ironhide there. Your spark would never support such mass."

Vox held up his hand in objection. "I've already been over that with engineering. My spark is unusually compressed for a mini, and my frame is not using nearly the power it is capable of. That is what makes me unsuited for a symbiont bond. Wheeljack has a process by which he believes he can safely expand my spark to power a larger frame. He isn't certain by how much, but would design the new frame accordingly."

Ironhide snorted, then cleared his vocalizer of the supposed static in it at Vox outarguing Optimus's logic.

Optimus ignored his Guardian, looking at Vox with very sad optics, his faceplates settling in mournful looks. "Though it costs me my friend, if you have looked into it so thoroughly... I cannot deny you your right to choose."

Vox tried to meet the gaze, and found he couldn't. "It is still my spark. A new person, but a person I'm choosing to become. This frame, and its primary function did their part, but it never truly suited me. Thank you, my Prime."

"Do not thank me for allowing you this, Vox." Optimus Prime had only partially reformatted on becoming Sentinel's heir; it still had changed him enough to make the mech uncomfortable when he thought on the life he had led outside the palace. What Vox wanted was far more drastic.

* * *

 _Present_

Ratchet deliberately backed away from the merge enough to allow Patronus to collect himself, to sort through the various feelings and questions that might only occur when he was not so intensely wrapped in their shared energies. He made sure to push warmth and acceptance through their bond, and his thankfulness, both at having become the new person he had at the beginning of the war, and that Ironhide had somehow managed to hold on to the essence of his core personality matrix despite such an extreme reformat.

~So strange, all these memories... not me, not you, but both?~ Patronus felt jumbled up, feeling like he was seeing events from more than one set of optics as Ratchet shared with him.

~There were certain memories that we combined over the vorns, ones that helped... remind us of who we are when we feared we were losing that core to the Pit. It is part of what being an anchor is about, remembering for and with one another,~ he explained. ~Ironhide's memory of what Vox did was more meaningful to me than accessing that same memory from Vox's backup, because it was the memory of my anchor, part of my cohort, rather than of a stranger. I carry your memory of that event because we shared it so many times when we merged.~

Patronus could understand that; it was part of why he had asked Ratchet for the important memories, rather than relying on the back-ups from Ironhide's files. They were more immediate, more real as they came from his lover, and easier to understand with all his being. ~What you did... It's when Ironhide... when I started really seeing you as a being worth noticing, I think.~

~I integrated small parts of his core... because I thought I should, to honor what he did. He... excelled at his function, but he was not at peace with himself. I am not certain that he felt worthy of being noticed, and most certainly not of being protected on the battlefield. But he felt at peace with his decision. I do not recognize myself in his memories as you can recognize yourself in Ironhide's. It is a mystery of the spark. His...mine...truly did wish to be someone new.~


	3. Rennervate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ratchet shares one final memory of Vox that was important to himself and Ironhide.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter rating, M (R). Explicit intimacy (PnP, fields, spark, tactile). Size kink.
> 
> FYI, Vox stands at about 2.2 meters or 7' 2" and Ironhide at about 6.7 meters or 22'.

_Rennervate: Charm used to energize or wake up_

He shouldn't even have been there. Even with the armor that had been added, Vox was too small, vulnerable, all too easily crushed by the massive energies deployed in every battle.

But Megatron had been ruthlessly targeting their medics. They had only half the number they had started with, and many of those did not have sparks suited to the horrors of combat. Nor did they dare risk them. Mini-cons, like himself, were sparked tough. They had to be in a world populated by behemoths and titans. He was small enough to be able to work without attracting so much notice.

But that didn't change the fact that he wasn't designed or coded to be there. He could fix up a mech who might not otherwise be able to get back behind the lines on his own power, but he didn't have the skills or tools to save an extinguishing spark. If he could have been a symbiont, a medic from behind the lines could have worked through him, sharing knowledge or even taking control through their bond when necessary. But he could not even offer that.

He would have extinguished had it not been for the massive warrior whose frame he now was clinging to as the thundering steps swiftly took them away from the lost outpost and the mech he could not save. He knew Ironhide was staying too close to him during engagements, knew what that was likely costing them.

Logic said he was not culpable for skills he did not and could not possess. But logic did not keep the sensor readouts of the doomed spark, giving its final desperate surge before fading, from running on repeat in Vox's processors, along with the grey, mangled shells of the others who'd never had a chance.

He shouldn't have been there, he was not the right mech for the job. But who else would be there if he wasn't?

* * *

Ironhide could not help but feel the negative pulses in the field of the mini he carried away. Medics, even half-trained or barely armored ones, were to be protected, and the fact that this one kept trying so hard had earned a level of respect from the weapons-master. He made a rumbling noise at Vox, warning him, just before he managed to clear the last obstacle that had kept him in mech mode. The transformation was smooth and had the thunder of engines roaring to life, with the mini tucked carefully in a cab that had been shifted to the right size at the expense of some of his armor in the front.

"We'll be safe soon, Vox," Ironhide said inside that space he'd made for his passenger, offering a flux of energies along the mini-con's frame to try to soothe him.

The fact that Vox actually jumped at the words, despite the lack of their usual bite and the gentle swell of the field brushing his own showed just how tense the mini was. He gave a small hum, acknowledging the words, and sank into the seat that held him gratefully.

For a time they travelled in silence, both the vibrations of Ironhide's high powered engines and his fields enveloping Vox, lulling him into a half recharge state that was more shock than rest and comfort. Though at least, surrounded by the massive warrior, Vox was not alone.

"How many did we lose? I couldn't get a count... when we were leaving," the mini-con finally asked in an emotionless tone as they neared the outer perimeter of their recently constructed base.

Ironhide touched his field display, then connected to the various officers under his command, and let out a low noise. "Numbers aren't good," he admitted. "We'll know more once we rally back at the rendezvous," he added, as some reported carrying in damaged soldiers. "Vox... what you did back there... it does mean something," Ironhide told him fiercely. "We might have lost him, but he went knowing he mattered to us enough to try. More than Megatron's mechs get." Another wave of energy searched out the mini-bot, wrapping around him.

The words and the accompanying embrace of fields broke through something in Vox, who let out a thin keen, his fields both pushing against the comfort offered and clinging to it. His digits gripped the anchoring supports of the seat Ironhide had molded for him from his frame. "I can't save the ones who really need to be saved," he rasped out in a static filled lament.

Ironhide's vocalizer, too, made a static sound, before those fields pressed in tighter around the mini. "Scrap, but that's my slagging fear every time I get out there," he said, sincerely, his rough voice cutting into the mini's personal hell. "If I can't keep them alive, can't win this war for my Prime... what am I? Just a mech making other mechs die."

The words took all of the polarized resistance out of Vox's field, his need to mend far stronger than the despair he had been slipping into more deeply with each battle and every casualty report. "No... no, you are keeping us alive. I watch you, how you know just where everyone is, how you place yourself to take ammo aimed for the ones whose armor can't. Everyone trusts you, wants to be assigned to you, even if it means going to the Pit, because they know their chances are better if you have their back."

Vox's field surged with his words, respect, admiration and trust having replaced the long animosity he had felt what seemed like an age before. It had been a different life, when in his own upper caste arrogance he had not understood that warriors were more than the base aggressiveness of their coding.

"Makes it all the worse, though, when I fail to bring them back," Ironhide said gruffly. He kept his fields centered on Vox, as much for mutual comfort as for the fact it meant he had a focus beyond what the field reports were giving him. If he hadn't had the mini inside him, he might have transformed again, and vented his anger at the losses, but right now... "Vox." His voice went questioning and quieter. "I hate it too."

Vox's hands unclenched their tight grip and instead reached out haltingly for the more sensitive exposed protoform that surrounded him, keeping him safe and sheltered. His field, likewise, pulsed outward with both question and need. He suppressed the swell of shame in his spark at the assumptions he had once held, and focused instead on the shared need for comfort.

Ironhide's fields changed intensity with a stutter in them, but came back strong, with a pulse of invitation, of need. "Slag... yes..." His engine revved, and he detoured to use a lesser entrance to the base, suddenly very aware of the mini in more ways than just as a slagging strong-willed mech with a purpose. "We both need to remember why."

Vox's hands lost all of their hesitancy as his frame was encompassed by the staggering strength of the need and desire in Ironhide's fields. His deft, capable digits slid over living metal and pulsing conduits. "Please," he managed to say, his systems aching to be filled with the energies of another, to forget, for a time, how alone he was with the loss of cohort and function.

"Pits, mech, you need it more than me," Ironhide rumbled, navigating the corridors with skill, until he got outside a room he knew wasn't in use. He gave a bare pulse before the transformation, spilling Vox out in front of him, one large hand already coming to cup the mini in close as his field vibrated with need and want. The other hand palmed the door open, so he could push them both inside for security.

In another lifetime, Vox might have found some comeback for that statement, but all his vocalizer could produce was the static buzz and crackles of need from one too low on energy and hope to do anything other than throw himself, headlong and desperate, into what was being offered. His tightly compressed spark produced a field strong enough to push hard into Ironhide's more massive one, losing himself within the wash of energy between them. The throb of his own circuits and those of the larger mech were loud enough silence gibbering terror that lay just underneath his absolute certainty of what needed to happen when they reported back. Ironhide didn't have to say that some of those lost would not have been had he not needed to protect Vox so closely while he'd worked in vain.

He could feel Ironhide's large spark spinning fast and hot underneath the thick black plating, so alive, while his own spark felt like it had guttered and was waiting to extinguish since the slaughter of his cohort, and again with senselessness and waste every spark lost since, on either side. He surged his field as if he could take some of that life and pull it within him, to have the courage to do what he knew must be done. Not the courage to die. He already had that. But the courage to die knowing what awaited him was not peace and oneness with those he'd lost, but only more war.

Ironhide made a guttural rumble of pleasure at that pull on his energies, and he pushed Vox up against the wall right by the door. It didn't take but one hand to lift the mini up, encouraging those legs to wrap and catch on his plating at his waist so that Ironhide had him at a better angle to explore. His fields pulsed hard and heavy against the smaller mech, even as a large thumb stroked down the centerline of Vox's chest. The splatter of energon on them both, worse on Vox, was no deterrent, and only added to Ironhide's need to share a connection.

Vox arched into the touch, keening with desperate need as he pressed himself into the strength of it. Supported by the bulk of Ironhide's frame, his small hands delved into the gaps to the heat beneath, moving with mindless lust to pull and squeeze and stroke every sensitive place he could reach.

"Want... need to feel you... please," Vox managed to sputter, his cables extending and ports opening wide.

"Slag but yes," Ironhide growled, his engines revving even louder with the way the mini's offering up the connection made him feel. His ports opened, cables coming up and hungrily seeking the connections, even as Ironhide's big hand came up and cupped behind Vox's neck and back, holding the mini firmly between his frame and the stroking touch. The connection ports were smaller, making the seeking cables morph their ends to fit properly, but when they slid in, Ironhide shuddered at the feeling, a shudder that translated to a ripple in his fields.

The slide and connection of the cables, the vibration of Ironhide's engine and the push of his field had Vox clawing at the large mech, arching again in total abandon as his own cables morphed, their ends widening to complete the circuit that allowed him to delve into the other in ways that went far beyond the desperate movements of his digits. His own firewalls, at least to his physical systems, collapsed in the pure need of feeling the energy and vitality of the larger mech within him.

Ironhide lowered just enough of his defenses to let the smaller mech get a true feel for who he was. All his protective energies, the true love of Cybertron, his deep loyalty to Prime were mixed into the fierceness of a war-built frame. And all of that was delivered in the shockingly hungry need to know that he was alive and able to affect another being in such a pure thing as this could be, giving and receiving data and energy. His fields wrapped around the smaller frame, squeezing against sensor nodes, and tickling at the protective energies of his new lover.

Vox's "yes!" to the loving onslaught was both shouted and shared fervidly across the data streaming between them. He'd felt so dead, so grey, and now, connected to this vital, fierce and protective being, it was like color was returning, if only briefly, not just to his own frame but to the world. Vox had not intended to share the extent to which his own hope and will to live had shattered. Nor to reveal the agony of wanting so desperately to preserve and protect the sparks around him, to continue to serve his Prime, yet finding himself so limited, vulnerable and broken. But faced with the truth of the energies that made up this massive warrior, he could not help but to open further, exposing his need to find reasons to live amid the call of the broken cohort bonds that had left his spark lacerated.

That honesty showed the warrior a deeper depth and strength in the politician-turned-medic, gave Ironhide even more reason to respect the mini. He revved his engines harder, giving the mini all those vibrations, matching them with hints of broken honor and loyalty destroyed that had been the cost of the war's beginning. Flicks of data, the names of mechs Ironhide had commanded, flashed through, a vow to remember them, or at least to do their memory proud followed on the heels of that. Through it all, Ironhide bled off the excess energy of combat into waves that the mini could handle, nurturing this brave mech who had tried to be more than his build.

As the waves of Ironhide's post-battle charge hit him, Vox lost all semblance of coherent and organized thought, and simply rode each peak, trying desperately to give back, but finding he could only hold on for the ride and offer in return just how good and whole he felt in the grip of Ironhide's hand and fields, buoyed up by the strength of the warrior's frame and spark. He opened the link wide so it would flow back in rhythm with the breaking crests of Ironhide's waves that repeatedly lit up the small mech's entire sensor net.

"Hot... little... mech," Ironhide managed to say, squeezing the hand holding Vox's neck and back, gently for him, as he let his optics shutter. "Take it all, Vox... I got plenty for ya," he urged, surging his fields again, more than willing to take as much time as he could for this. Right now, locked in a feedback loop with a partner, Ironhide could just exist, feel, and react without having to think through it all. The feel of Vox getting off on his energies sent Ironhide on a small overload, which he shared back, complete with the fact it was Vox making Ironhide react so hard.

"So...so good," Vox cried out, wisps of purple-blue plasma dancing across his frame and static arcing between them. Insulated by Ironhide's frame behind and before him, his charge grew with each wave of Ironhide's vitality, the overload that spilled across their connection just increasing the buzzing crackle of Vox's writhing frame. He didn't want it to ever stop, didn't want to ever fall from the height Ironhide was lifting him to. There was no longer any thought of loss, only the node-shocking pleasure of the completed circuit. "More...more...," he begged, without any thought to how much his small frame could take.

"All ya want," Ironhide purred, before cracking his seals on his spark enough to let the spillover keep from overheating him too fast. He would never merge outside his cohort, but a little spark energy kept things nice and strong for longer. He leaned in, sending a surge through his fields even as he tasted the hot metal of his lover's neck, glossa curling in and around the cabling there.

Vox grabbed the cabling between Ironhide's neck and his thick shoulder armor, squeezing hard and holding on as though his functioning depended on it. His entire frame spasmed and a noise halfway between a keen and a scream erupting from him as the surge of Ironhide's spark finally overwhelmed him, the insulation of his circuits no longer able to contain the massive energies crashing between them.

That firm, hard wash of all of Vox's energies cascading through him, out into Ironhide's circuits was too much to resist for the warrior mech, who knew the value of a hard, fast interface. He held Vox tight to his frame, shuddering and having to lock his joints to keep from sliding down as each system washed into the full overload he'd been holding back, letting everything go except the most basic awareness and defense pathways.

The little mech clearly trusted him enough to let go completely. He was limp in Ironhide's firm grasp, systems deeply in recharge and a thorough defrag that only such a massive overload could initiate. Ironhide brought himself back up and online quickly, then saw his partner was well sated, deeply gone, and he opted to unlock his joints, settling back on his aft, careful of their connections. ::Prime, may be late. Performing maintenance on your doc-bot.::

Optimus responded near instantly with a glyph loaded with wry appreciation. ::That creates a most pleasant image in my processors. Please do take your time and enjoy, my friend.::

* * *

_Present_

~Oh slag, yes!~ the two sparks affirmed in unison, now fully merged as though a single orb around binary spinning cores. They compressed into a hot vortex of multi-dimensional energies before erupting in a single, shared overload that surged through far more than their frames and spilled into bay around them. The pleasure-joy-love lit up not just their own bond but every bond among their cohort in a brief flash of life affirmed and precious memories shared, coded deeply in their sparks.


	4. Reparo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ratchet shares memory files of his own onlining after Vox's reformat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Notes:** "Present" portions of this chapter set sometimes between chapter 12 and the epilogue of Patronus. Credit to Tainry for some of the growth tank ideas and for "clang" as a euphamism (others may have used it as well, but Borealis is where I recall first seeing "clank", "clang" and "clanging bolts"). Credit to Dwimordene for the verb "to teek". Credit to this fandom for having an amazing and creative collective imagination.
> 
>  **Content Notification:** Explicit intimacy (PnP, fields, tactile, spark)  
> 

  
_Reparo: Repairs broken items_   


_Present_

"Sideswipe will be accompanying you back to your property this evening, Will," Ironhide said after the group of human officials who had been touring the future site of the new Autobot base at the Mount St. Hilary volcanic preserve departed.

"I'm sure he's thrilled," Lennox said dryly.

"He enjoys your youngling far more than he'll ever admit," Ironhide responded in the far less gruff tone that Will had come to associate with the Patronus aspect of his personality core, who was very much a part of the mech, the recent change in designation notwithstanding.

"I won't give away his secret," Will assured him with a wink up at the bright blue optics regarding him from above. He leaned against Ironhide's lower leg struts companionably. "So watcha got goin' tonight? Business or pleasure?"

Ironhide chuckled. "More memory shares. That is, if I can get Ratchet satisfied with the set up of the temporary med bay long enough for a decent clang. Been too busy since Chicago, and he promised me he kept his schedule clear tonight. I intend to make sure the slagger keeps it that way."

"Pleasure, then," Will said, no longer even noticing how comfortable he had become with that particular topic, thanks in part to Ironhide's absolute unwillingness to be bow to human sensitivities to the subject over the years.

"Slagging well hope so," Ironhide growled.

* * *

The two mechs sat with their shoulder, arm, hip and leg plating all touching as they leaned both against one another the solid rock wall at their backs. Their fields were intertwined in post overload satisfaction. The need to affirm their bond in tactile ways had momentarily overridden the desire, or even ability, to share more memories.

"Don't act so slagging smug," Ratchet grumbled when yet another all too pleased pulse sauntered over their bond.

Ironhide smirked and said nothing at all, content that nothing needed saying about the fact that Ratchet had overloaded first, hard, on his back underneath him. There had been begging involved. The CMO had not even been able to initiate the memory sharing.

He had figured there would be plenty of time for that as the evening progressed, and had used a surprise attack to his advantage, with very satisfying results. If he'd been practicing said moves with Sideswipe, repeatedly, with enjoyable results no matter who ended up on the bottom, who was he to complain?

"Just for that, the first file I'm giving you is one of Wheejack's," Ratchet snapped, but the feeling through their bond was total affection, and no small amount of excitement for what they would share as he extended all four primary cables and opened his corresponding ports.

* * *

Wheeljack pondered whether he should attempt to engage in conversation with the dark, brooding figure who had once again appeared in the fabrication bay. The engineer's other attempts at courtesy had been met with curt responses and a swift exit. Perhaps it would be better to simply go on with his work and pretend the warrior was not present.

While Ironhide might claim that his interest was a strategic one based on the small cohort of warriors who were partially reformatting into a gestalt, Wheeljack had seen the weapons master standing guard outside of the medical bay when the minicon's spark had been disconnected. He also found out that later, the warrior had been the one to deliver Vox's tiny grey frame to recycling.

Wheeljack made a point to take readings on that particular tank, muttering the results so the warrior could overhear. He was going to have add more materials. At this rate, the brightly pulsing and spinning spark within the tank would have a frame just a bit smaller than the warrior himself. And considering the redundant parts Vox had asked for the new medic to be coded to produce, he would likely outmass mechs larger than himself once he'd been online for a time. Not to mention the fairly staggering subspace capacity that a spark of his strength could access. Even Wheejack had been amazed at the outcome of the experimental spark decompression procedure.

Ironhide remained silently there, apparently not listening to the engineer, but his optics continually flicked back to the tank holding the medic. While he needed warriors as severely as any army ever would, the medic was the more strategically vital reformat. That, Ironhide told himself, was why he kept checking back. It had nothing to do with the attachment he had inexplicably formed with Vox, or that he was absolutely not going to allow a medic of so much compassion to ever be truly alone. That way was the way to madness, Ironhide had insisted to his Prime when he had made his own decision.

The silence apparently became too much for the talkative engineer. "Frame's still assembling, but the processors are complete, and already integrating the basic modules, plus some medical and historical ones. He's a fast slagger, I'll give you that!" Wheeljack began explaining in an enthusiastic tone accompanied by the flashing of his indicators. "Soon he'll be assembled enough that we could bring his conscious components partially online, give him input on the more specialized modules and even some frame configuration options, while he's still in the tank. We've followed all of Vox's instructions to this point, but this one'll be at a place soon to override those... if we bring him partially online, that is. That's supposed to be his cohort's call, though."

"No." Ironhide's word was final, and when Wheeljack whipped his head around to figure out why, the warrior narrowed his optics. "I don't know this mech yet. I did know Vox. I will see his instructions carried out fully, not subject to redesign by an inexperienced mech. Any configuration changes made will come after he's adapted to what Vox wished." Ironhide would see to the politico's final wishes that way, to be true to the memory of the sacrifice made. "You can check your data files; I'm his appointed caretaker until he is fully cognitive."

Wheejack's indicator fins flashed with surprise as he checked and found a recent update to the new medic's file. "Indeed you are! And here I was just going to suggest that you might consider the matter, since he has not yet been assigned a cohort."

"Not assigned. Co-opted," Ironhide said firmly. "The medic will be part of the command core surrounding Prime, per my request." His tone dared Wheeljack to try and refute that.

Wheeljack did not even cycle his optics at the tone. His indicators lit up in his own version of a smile. "That is marvelous, Ironhide! Prime should have a cohort, and I believe Vox would be very pleased with that decision, from what I knew of him."

Ironhide let out a noise, but he stopped being quite so defensive. He had been put in the unenviable position of strong-arming Prime into accepting that decision. He still wasn't certain what to think of the fact his win had come because Sunstreaker, of all mechs, had told Prime to quit being a brat of a sparkling about the issue.

* * *

Ironhide had insisted on actually being present for the onlining process. That had held back the medic's procedure by a small period of time, as Ironhide had been mopping up a Decepticon pocket of resistance at the appointed time. However, he had wasted little time through the high-power washracks, wanting to get this done as quickly as he could.

Just because he and Vox had found a point of commonality did not mean he and this new mech were going to get along well. It might wind up being a professional relationship in the end, though Ironhide would blast the new mech if he hurt Prime in any way.

The new mech had been given the proper coding to recognize his assigned cohort, but it was traditional for at least one of the members to plug in for the onlining. Prime, despite his reservations, might have been the better choice, all things considering, but he was currently away attempting to gain the support of a group of neutral scientists.

The attending medic, along with members of the engineering team, were all present. Several of the fields of those monitoring the process teeked outright hostile to Ironhide, objecting to a medic, even one destined for the battlefield, onlining to a warrior. Not that said warrior gave a slag what they thought. And not that any of the broken cohorts among those teams had volunteered, either. Mecha were reluctant to form new cohort bonds with the threat of loss so palpable.

Ironhide's theory, one that Wheeljack had found interesting and possible, was that a warrior would understand loss in a different way, providing a fallback for a medic when the inevitable happened on the battlefield. The medics, insulating themselves in their cohorts, tended to feed the distress levels with 'commiseration' that actually made them sloppier if called to the field, knowing they _would_ lose mechs. It led to poor defensive maneuvers on their part, which disgusted Ironhide.

As much courage and conviction as Vox had shown, the minicon had been broken as much by the losses in battle as his cohort. It was essential that this medic be able to withstand what he would face.

At the attending medic's terse signal, Ironhide connected his cephalic cable to the matching port on the broad and still dull colored frame on the slightly tilted platform, leaving the thoracic port for the medic to initiate the process.

It was disconcerting, connecting to 'dead space' so to speak, but that would change rapidly. Ironhide, keeping his promise to Optimus Prime, cleared his mind of the war, the costs, and just held tight to the concept of a wholeness found in the bonds to be forged.

* * *

As the initial boot up sequence sped by, he processed every detail with the keen understanding of one programmed to know exactly what the various status reports and numerical values meant. As soon as he was able, he initiated his own internal scans to more deeply monitor the process and simultaneously investigate various blocks of information he knew would be available to him.

By the time the sequence had completed itself, allowing him to online his optics and take control of his frame, he was already aware that he was a medic, specializing in battlefield triage and emergency repair, reformatted using the spark of a voluntarily offlined minicon, designation Vox. He knew that his own design and function were a direct result of that mech's final wishes, and that a copy of his memory core was available to peruse or integrate as he desired.

His own designation, Ratchet, was immediately obvious to him, and as was protocol, he transmitted it to those who were connected with him, one of whom announced it aloud to be entered into the logs along with the exact time and date of his boot-up. Just as obvious was the purpose of the bright color scheme already settling in to his frame: to make him visible to those transporting wounded mecha to him during a battle. He was formatted to be in the midst of the chaos, not hide in the shadows.

His optics flickered with interest over the two mechs connected to him. The smaller of the two, discretely monitoring his systems via his thoracic port, was a medic, designation Spanner, whose presence was kept properly shielded behind his firewalls so as not to interfere with his initial cohort interfacing sequence.

The second mech, his dark form looming over the medical berth, was Ironhide, a warrior-build guardian representing Ratchet's unusually small assigned cohort whose only other member was Optimus Prime, the rightful civilian leader of Cybertron, and now, the leader of the Autobots. It was this mech who captivated Ratchet's attention.

Portions of Ironhide's consciousness were not behind firewalls, but were quietly, yet openly observing him as he become aware of his surroundings. There was a strong sense of duty, purpose, and resolution apparent both in Ironhide's fields and emotional subroutines. It was automatic for Ratchet to attempt to access Ironhide's systems and coding, to scan for malfunctions. His coding made it clear that it was not only his function as a medic, but his duty as a member of this warrior's cohort.

What he found did not please him. The first emotional subroutine Ratchet became aware of was one he identified as annoyance, because Ironhide had clearly been recently injured by a combination of percussive, incendiary, and sonic forces. The damage was minor, but lack of proper recharge and the delay of necessary fueling were taxing the mech's self repair systems.

::Refuel with a minimum of one cube of standard midgrade and initiate a joor of full recharge and defragmentation in order to properly initialize self repair on your damages. Noncompliance with this order may result in an escalation of the damage, necessitating surgical replacement of vital parts,:: were the first words he transmitted across the cable, confident in his assessment.

::Slag off,:: came the growling rebuttal of those orders from the owner of the damage. Ironhide's amusement, though, laced into that automatic gruff refusal to be logical. ::You don't get to push me around that fast, medic.:: The standing habit of not letting anyone push him around was clear in the open portions of the mech's processes.

The medic felt momentarily confused. He was simply fulfilling his function. Why would a mech refuse an order given for his own well being? One of his files suggested that warriors such as this one often responded more favorably to a communication style that matched their own aggressive coding. He began to initiate movement in his frame, so he could sit up, and preferably stand and give the order again from a posture Ironhide would be more likely to respect than lying prone on a table.

Unfortunately, the attending medic had other ideas and overrode his intentions with a terse glyph ordering him to remain still while his systems were checked for errors. Now it was Ratchet's turn to balk.

::How could you allow this mech to delay needed self repair? It wasn't like I couldn't wait another joor to online,:: he snapped.

::The warrior in question is one of the most difficult mechs to suborn into cooperation with the most basic repair processes. He is also, currently, the senior-most officer in the war against the Decepticons.:: That information was followed with a string of glyphs indicating that it was by default, not choice, and a search was underway for a proper command council.

Ironhide, ignoring the other medic completely, inspected Ratchet again, from an outer awareness, sharing what he saw with the mech he was connected to. His approval of the heavy frame, the strength in it, came through. Despite Ironhide's attempts to conceal it behind his own firewalls, he was mentally checking off features and awareness of Ratchet's capabilities against the design Vox had hammered out.

He in turn felt Ratchet's own awareness turn toward his newly onlined self, while having to consciously fight against the compulsion to continue pressing Ironhide toward rest and repair, or even begin scanning the others within the room. Ratchet was not yet cleared for duty, and frustrated by that fact, but recognized within his own protocols the need for a newly onlined mech to settle into conscious operation carefully and be thoroughly monitored for potential glitches and malfunctions.

As Ratchet scanned his own frame and various systems along with the attending medic, he was struck by his utter suitability to the tasks he had been onlined to fulfill. He had plenty of unused space, just waiting to be filled with the redundant cabling, conduits, and various parts his own systems would fabricate for the well-being of those he would make whole. Following Ironhide's awareness, he noted how thick and heavy his armor was, how it would be able to withstand multiple kinds of force as he worked in the field, his own frame acting as a shield to protect his patients.

If his first emotion had been annoyance, then confusion, now he was pleased. This felt so inherently right to his spark.

Ironhide caught that pleasure, and magnified it with his own, for the acceptance of the design Vox had been so meticulous over. ::You'll do,:: Ironhide told the new medic with a rough affection. ::Soon as these slagging nanny-bots get their cables and digits off of you,:: he added with frank irritation.

Ratchet's reaction to that epithet was a mixture of surprise, brief annoyance, and then humor, to the irritation of the attending medic who did not appreciate the description at all, and was allowing some of his disapproval of the cohort to which Ratchet had been assigned, or at least this representative of it, to leak through. Most unprofessionally, in Ratchet's opinion. Both his coding and his spark were in agreement where loyalty to one's cohort was concerned.

::Spanner does not approve of you being my cohort,:: he transmitted, in what might have been a wry tone or the natural honesty of a newly onlined mech. ::Should I be concerned?::

Ironhide let the internal laughter roll through the new mech. ::No use for them, nor they for me. And they all think I'm preempting their privileges, though none of the slagging peace-bots ever spoke up with a better offer. You belong with me and Prime, because of your design, though.:: He would not budge on that stance, quite proprietary of the new mech. ::Besides, you're a medic, for fixing broken bots, right? Can't think of one more in danger of breaking than the big bot himself. Opting you in means maybe I can relax a bit where his welfare is concerned,:: Ironhide told Ratchet. Even behind that glib reassurance and stated purpose though, Ironhide's refusal to relax his vigilance for his cohort partner, his guardian-bonded charge, was deeply apparent.

Loyalty to the Prime, and the desire to keep him whole and functioning, was of high priority in Ratchet's coding as well. That, again, felt deeply right to the medic on a level that transcended code, not that he could sense any conflict between his protocols and the spark that gave him sentience. It was important, he knew, to find such conflicts in the newly onlined, because they could lead to major emotive malfunctions. He was pleased with the results of his own scans in that regard, and noted that Ironhide was as well.

::Vox wanted this for me,:: Ratchet said, noting the response in the warrior to that designation. ::He was important to you. Were you cohort to him as well?::

Ironhide mentally flinched. He then reached out to grip Ratchet's shoulder. ::Vox was alone.:: He did not say anything else, but the regret palpable in that was clear.

Ratchet automatically reached across their hardlined connection and with his fields to soothe that regret. A desire to strengthen his cohort connection, to formalize that bond welled within him. ::But I am not. And neither are you, or our Prime,:: he responded, not even sure why he did so, but knowing it was important for him to acknowledge, along with the sense of relief in his spark for that fact.

Ironhide rumbled reassuringly, acceptance of this situation core deep. ::The Prime is very busy, but he will formalize the bond once he is able,:: Ironhide remembered to say, knowing that it might seem awkward otherwise. ::His guards are with him.:: That followed swiftly, to show he was not neglectful of his duties.

The only response for Ratchet to make was a pulse of assurance that he understood Prime's absence, Ironhide's need to protect, that fact that the warrior was not always in a position to do so, because of the war he had onlined with detailed information regarding. ::I wish they'd hurry up and clear me,:: he groused, when the medic initiated yet another scan. ::Don't they know there is a war going on?::

Ironhide squeezed the digits on Ratchet's frame, pleased by that. ::Won't be any attacks this orn,:: he sent with a firm sense of satisfaction. ::Sent their afts skulking off decisively today!:: Of course, none of the fliers, either fixed wing or rotors, had been in the battle.

::And apparently got yourself injured in the process,:: Ratchet could not help but noting.

Before Ironhide could respond, the attending medic, satisfied with his scans, disconnected from Ratchet's thoracic port. "Welcome to functioning, Autobot medic Ratchet," he said formally as Ratchet stood for the first time, remaining as close to Ironhide as possible. "All of the medical modules you have not yet integrated are available to you, and you will be assigned a medical mentor in addition to your cohort custodian during your training period. Your protocols will inform you of what scans you should be doing on your own systems during these initial orns. Be sure to report any anomalies immediately, and report back for another assessment after your first full recharge."

"Of course," Ratchet responded, turning his attention immediately back to the sole member of his cohort who was present.

Ironhide made sure Ratchet was steady, then removed the data cable actually connecting them, aware it wasn't needed. He could still feel Ratchet right there, his fields unfamiliar yet welcome. He indicated the door. "Since the nanny-bots are done, let's go to quarters," he said out loud, just to irk the medics present.

Ratchet, becoming accustomed to the feel of moving his frame, transmitted a formal glyph taking his leave from the medics and engineers, taking note of those who appeared friendlier. These including a tall mech with vocal indicator fins, designated Wheeljack. His databanks supplied that the engineer had been integral in working with Vox to design his frame. Transmitting a second glyph of thanks to that mech, he turned and followed Ironhide from the medical bay.

* * *

 _Present_

Ironhide fell back away from the data file, his digits caressing along the transformation seams in Ratchet's chest armor, optics onlining. "Shoulda known you were bossy from the beginning," he rumbled at his lover, before flicking glossa along Ratchet's throat, both their charges running hot.

Ratchet chuckled and cracked the seal on his chest to let his hot, spinning energies begin to emerge, knowing how thoroughly Ironhide became mesmerized with the sparks of his cohort. "How else would you expect me to be. The fact that I, as the humans would say, cuss like a sailor, is all your fault, though," he said as the manipulators from his digits extended into various gaps in his lover's armor, stroking and wrapping highly sensitive spots he had already mapped on the new frame.

Ironhide smirked a little, but his vocalizer static-burst on the sensations of both spark energy and being caressed that intimately. He cracked his own plates, then slid them full open, mouth and glossa going for that one small spot near Ratchet's helm that drove the medic just pure hungry with need.

Ratchet rumbled dangerously, his manipulators going deeper and his glossa stroking Ironhide's audial sensor as his own plates spread, unable to resist the call of his anchor's fiercely loving spark. ::Don't even think of trying to get me on my back this time,:: he warned as his manipulators connected with several motor relays that he could use to enforce his will on an uncooperative patient.

::You loved it,:: Ironhide gloated ever so smugly, but he was more than pleased to just go with the flow of his energies begging for a connection. He tugged, trying to pull Ratchet across his thighs facing him for a more comfortable position.

It should have been no surprise to the guardian that he ended up on his back despite his efforts. Not that he was in any position to complain when his lover's spark sank into him with a fiercely possessive hunger that matched his own.


	5. Accio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The newly onlined Ratchet faces the obstacles of a tradition-bound medical establishment and an overprotective cohort-mate, while in the present, Ironhide discovers an aspect of his former self's coding that does not sit well with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Present" portions of this chapter set sometimes between chapter 12 and the epilogue of Patronus.
> 
> Content Notifcation: Mild innuendo and mild violence.

  
_Accio: Summons an object to the caster, potentially over a great distance._   


"Your improvisation on the procedure is unacceptable. Begin simulation 523.2 again and follow the standard protocols you downloaded."

A scratchy, electronic hiss escaped from Ratchet's vocalizer.

"You disagree?" the smaller medic asked archly from the raised platform from which he was observing Ratchet's work on the holo-matter simulated patient on the repair cradle.

Ratchet cycled his vents and raised his optics to meet those of his function mentor. "Torque, the standard protocols, for this and nearly every other procedure, are designed for a contained, secure environment with stasis tanks to use in the event of cascading system failures. I was built to work on a battlefield, and must assume that much of my work will be without any sort of standard repair bay or equipped medical transport shuttle. My adaptation on the procedure prioritizes the systems that are necessary for spark containment and getting mecha ambulatory in order to retreat to a secure environment, over all other systems. Our fighters all have memory core backups. I will not prioritize core and processors only to lose spark containment."

Torque's optics bore into Ratchet's. "And I will not give you clearance to work in anything other than a contained, secure environment with another medic present until you demonstrate your kinetic mastery of standard medical procedures, mechling."

"I don't want those procedures to be a part of my kinetic memory!" Ratchet snapped. "I have gone over each of them with several seasoned warriors, and have determined which systems and repairs must be prioritized to ensure their survival in the field. I will remind you that I am under Prime's command, not the Medic Council's. My cohort will decide when I am ready for the field."

There was noise from the corridor outside, a muffled cry for someone to stop, and then a solid thunk of metal on metal before a smaller thunk indicated a small body connecting with the corridor wall. Mere kliks later, Ironhide strode in, optics blazing with the intensity of his response to the fuzz and distress on a cohort band, even if that distress was anger and frustration more than anything else.

"What's going on?!" the war-mech inquired, voice gone very dangerous and angry at all involved, because he had been trying to fall into recharge when the emotions clouded his ability to do so.

"Apparently me, failing to shield myself properly from my slagging nanny bot," Ratchet grumbled in exasperation after scanning to be sure that the mech in the corridor (thankfully not badly injured) was being attended to. He had not intended to draw his cohort-mate to himself, and certainly did not need the warrior defending him from a medic who came up to his hip joint.

Ironhide's optics fell on him fully, then on the other medic. "Torque." His tone was clipped and harsh. "Report on Ratchet's training to me." He moved to stand behind his cohort member, radiating his anger at the trainer, and protectiveness for Ratchet.

"The mechling is failing to show adequate integration and kinetic mastery of 39.29% of the medical modules he has integrated," Torque reported in a blatantly hostile tone. "Until he has done so, he is unfit for field duty. Perhaps it would be wise for his cohort to encourage him to integrate a different function, since he is proving to be sub-par at his formatted one."

Ironhide's vocalizer went completely silent as he glared at the medic. "Torque, wasn't..." and Ironhide paused, forcing his database memory to provide him with the name he needed, "Miter one of your cohort?" Ironhide asked in a low voice, intentionally bringing up the name of a recent casualty who had failed to adapt to the conditions of war and how it affected the functions of a medic. "He performed to the best of his functions, in the bay, but couldn't stop the loss of three separate mechs at the battle he accompanied Prime's forces to. The stress of it... what do you call it when a mech chooses to extinguish due to failure?" It was cold, it was cruel, but it illustrated a point. The functions as written were not working for the new world they lived in.

Torque's field flared and then was withdrawn tight. "This war is an abomination," he said in a voice that devoid of emotion but did nothing to hide his grief. "I will not train up a medic to repair frames just to become cannon fodder as quickly as possible again. The protocols as they are written are holistic. Ratchet's adaptations repair mecha without truly healing them, so they can go out and extinguish the next time."

"That isn't the case, Torque," Ratchet said, attempting to sound far more patient than his emotive protocols were currently running. "I am simply rewriting the procedures for use in the field, so we do not continue losing sparks when medics lock-up because their integrated procedures are not suited to the environment in which we find ourselves. When I have the luxury of having mecha back in the safety of medical bay, I can pay attention to more than saving their sparks."

Ironhide rested a hand on the shoulder of his cohort-mate, optics never once leaving the instructor. "I want to end the war, and to do that, I need to not lose mechs before they can be repaired," Ironhide growled at Torque. "They aren't getting any chance to make it to a medical bay and tank right now! And Megatron's forces are, because they've got Hook and his team out there at every fight. So, unless you're actually working for that traitor, you need to let Ratchet do his core function the way he needs to...as a _field_ medic!" The cannon on his free arm gave a whine as he powered it up, low and just for show at this point. "If you are working for him...." The whine intensified in unspoken promise of what Ironhide would do.

The medic flinched and a high frequency squeak emerged from his vocalizer at the threat, but he stood his ground. "His adaptations are untested. They could cost your warriors their sparks..."

"Then let me slagging-well test them in simulations and quit trying to force me to kinetically integrate protocols that I'll have to dump and overwrite before I can operate in the field! It is a slagging waste of time!" Ratchet finally exploded as the frustration of being prevented from fulfilling his function overcame his limited reserves of patience. Simultaneously he flared his fields in annoyance at his cohort-mate, pushing the hand off of his shoulder as he whirled around. "And you keep your slagging weapons locked. No one is trying to offline me here." He had more to say to the single member of his cohort he had yet to meet, but it would wait until they weren't under the watchful optics of his medical mentor.

They had yet to fully formalize their cohort bond, opting to wait until Prime returned for long enough for them to do so. But the two had shared enough spark energies that the cohort coding allowed a spillover of indistinct emotions. Without the fullness of the bond, Ratchet knew it was difficult for Ironhide to discern what he was receiving, leading to far too many situations in which his protective nature got the better of him and he barged in on whatever situation had riled up the newly online mech. It might have been endearing if it hadn't been so infuriating. Ratchet did not need so much protecting, and worried about what it would mean when he finally was cleared to leave the shelter of headquarters.

Ironhide let his cannon power down at that, amusement and pride in Ratchet coming up in the bond they did share. He liked that fire and spunk in the new medic, which made him turn his optics back to the training mech. "Torque," he said in a calmer tone. "Optimus Prime wants this medic cleared for field duty as soon as possible. Learn that thing all you peaceful types talk about: compromise. He needs new skills; you want him to know the basics. Work through it somehow." He turned to leave on that note, knowing that invoking Prime was often the quickest way to end these idiocies.

Ratchet could teek Torque's field, fluctuating with the hurt of his recent cohort loss that Ironhide had so cruelly invoked. He watched the smaller mech stare at the door, optics cycling several times before returning their glare to his student.

"That Pit-spawn engineer designed you with as much warrior coding as he did medic. I do not understand you," Torque admitted. "And when you fully bond with that walking weapon, you'll take on even more of those qualities."

"That might not be a bad thing, Torque, considering what I was formatted for," Ratchet countered, Ironhide's appearance having flamed his desire to somehow make this work and get out of the sheltered environment as soon as possible. "Let me do the simulations my way, as though I'm in the field. Then I'll complete the repairs to your satisfaction after the patients have successfully withstood a simulated transfer to base. I'm sure the simulations can be modified to allow testing for such a scenario."

Torque considered, then nodded curtly. He really did not have much choice in this, after all. Ironhide would only report to Optimus Prime if Ratchet was not allowed to adapt tried and true methods to the barbaric circumstances of these abominable times.

* * *

As a newly onlined mech, Ratchet shared quarters with the member of his cohort currently on base to reinforce the connection and coding that tied them together. At least, that was how it was supposed to work. With as irritated as he frequently felt with the warrior, Ratchet had to wonder whether it might not be better to have a bit of distance.

Of course, then Ironhide would probably have injured someone half his size on his way to checking anytime the newly onlined medic had a recharge flux. It was all part of the gruff mech's guardian coding. Ratchet understood that. But he'd been formatted to be tough and self-sufficient, able to withstand what others had not. The protectiveness rankled him to his spark, the same way it rankled him when the warrior came back injured from a patrol or engagement and did not allow him to properly attend to it.

That Ratchet felt every bit as protective of his cohort-mate's well-being did not cross his processors. He would not have thought to admit how knowing that Ironhide was facing the enemy without a proper battlefield medic in his unit felt like an acid pellet to the spark chamber every time the warrior left headquarters. That was simply normal. He was his cohort's medic. He was supposed to feel that way.

After working himself nearly to the point of collapse, proving both the efficacy of many of his revised protocols as well as his kinetic mastery of them, Ratchet entered Ironhide's quarters, intent on a cube of fuel and at least a quarter orn of well-earned recharge, but not before he told the weapons-master precisely what he thought of his earlier intervention.

"What you did was completely unnecessary," he said without preliminaries as he entered the quarters and scanned that Ironhide was online. "You injured Quark when you threw him against the wall, set Torque back at least a metacycle in his recovery from losing Miter, not to mention that I slagging well had it under control! I don't need you rushing in to my rescue every time I get a surge in my circuits."

"Wrong." Ironhide was seated and studying several data pads of intelligence, trying to predict his former Lord's next maneuvers. "You are my responsibility. Duty has interfered with fine-tuning the bond to allow me to know the source of your frustrating emotional surges. And until I can be certain no assassin or spy is the cause of that imbalance, I will continue to seek you out, as I am able, or order another to do so, if I am not."

That reasoning stopped Ratchet in his tracks. Did Prime's guardian truly think that badly of their headquarters' defenses, that he thought Ratchet was in danger of being offlined by an assassin? Apparently he did. "Ironhide," he started, crossing the room to where the dark-plated mech was sitting. "I'm going to be at far greater risk once I'm in the field. Being this protective of me is counterproductive to the entire purpose of Vox's reformat!" Ratchet's spark twinged with guilt at invoking the mech who had sacrificed himself to make way for his own creation.

"Your present being is the only thing of interest to me," Ironhide said flatly. With Ratchet firmly among the ranks, and far too much pressing on his time and processing power, Ironhide had pushed all the memories of Vox to the external memory database he kept. It was too much of a drain on his resources to keep extraneous emotional triggers at bay. "By the time you go to the field, I will be satisfied you are capable of protecting your own slaggin' aft."

Ratchet, forgetting the argument momentarily, honed in on the absolute lack of emotion he felt in their nebulous bond in regard to the designation he had so callously invoked. It was completely different than the previous times Vox had come up. He cycled his optics, attempting to understand, but it made no sense. Something was wrong. He automatically initiated a scan of the warrior for some malfunction or processor injury he'd missed.

"What is wrong with you?" Ratchet asked when the scan came up free of any telling issues other than self-repairs he'd already documented and had been tracking the progress of.

"I don't have a glitch. Why?" Ironhide bristled a little at the implication he was less than functional.

"You... I... slag it Ironhide, every other time anyone has mentioned Vox your response hasn't exactly been blasé. Now you are just... flat."

"There was no more importance to maintaining a file concerning Vox once you were functional," Ironhide told him. "I must be concerned with the present. Now, back to the matter at hand. I will continue to see to your welfare until I have ample reason to understand your capability in handling it on your own."

"Wait just a slagging klik!" Ratchet erupted, his entire system surging with a flood of betrayal and hurt that surprised even himself. He might not be Vox, but Vox's spark had become him, and Ironhide's admissions hurt like the Pit. "You shared your memories of him with me... and then you just deleted them?"

Ironhide set his data pad down, and pushed away from the desk he was using to stand and walk over to a sealed recess in the wall. He palmed it open, and showed Ratchet that it held common file-cases, the kind used to archive data in the various great libraries and universities. "Not deleted. Removed from operating parameters, to prevent it from being a detriment to my future functions."

Ratchet, perhaps for the first time since he'd onlined, was at a loss for words as mixture of shock and hurt continued to flood from his spark to his systems outward into his field. For several kliks he simply stared at Ironhide's personal archive, his tank feeling like it might purge the little fuel he'd had in the previous orn. "Is that what you always do, when someone you care for extinguishes? Move them from internal to external so they aren't a detriment?"

Ironhide scowled at him, closing the recess. "I am a warrior mech," he said as if that were all the explanation Ratchet should need. Warriors were designed to lose the memory of how horrible the experience of battle was, so that they remained fearless in its face.

Ratchet's optics dimmed in such a way that made clear he was searching his files and those on the medical server for information. What he found made him twitch and cycle his vents. He had known that it was common for warriors to do external backups more frequently than other builds. He had assumed it was because of the danger they faced to memory core and processors with each engagement.

Now, delving deeper into the baseline warrior coding structure, he realized that it was something more than just a safety precaution. Their own coding caused them to prioritize the memory data that made them the most successful in battle, and to delete that which might trigger emotive responses that could interfere. The fact that Ironhide kept Vox's memories in externals was a testament to how important the mech was to him, because he knew that his own core would not prioritize the memories of the offlined politico as being in any sense essential to his function.

"Pits, Ironhide. If I'm going to be a medic to war-builds, I need to understand them... understand you!" Ratchet's tone had gone harsh with static, his exhaustion hitting him hard along with a sharp surge in his frustration that there had been no opportunity to formalize the bond that would truly help him know his cohort. Not to mention that there was another individual in his cohort whom he only knew through the few files Ironhide had chosen to share and the part of his own coding that automatically tied him to Prime.

Ironhide studied the medic, then snorted at him. "Refresh and recharge. Isn't that what you'd be barking at me?"

Ratchet geared himself up to argue with that, but considering his frame was collapsing into the second chair, it would not likely be effective. "Any word from Prime?" he asked instead, unsubspacing a cube he'd skipped earlier rather than allowing his already overprotective cohort-mate to get him one.

The war mech sprawled on the chair he had recently vacated. "Negotiations with Altihex broke down. He will be arriving soon." Ironhide was not pleased, but unsurprised. Talking never got any results. "He has made plans, barring battle, to spend time with you as soon as he is free."

Ratchet simply transmitted a glyph acknowledging the information and took a sip from his cube, having no desire to vocalize how anxious he was to complete the cohort bond, and the fear that resided somewhere in his spark that something would happen to one of them before he'd had a chance to.

Ironhide watched, waiting for the inevitable involuntary recharge cycle to begin. He could wrestle the massive mech to a berth, and get him straightened out. Until then, he'd just let Ratchet do whatever the medic needed to feel like himself.

* * *

 _Present_

The intensive blue of Ironhide's optics were locked into the distance. He was sitting on the outside of the current complex, staring up at the skies as he thought longer on the most recent memories shared with him. He wanted to understand, to grasp what had caused Ratchet's reaction to the warrior-coded memory issues, since they seemed to resonate under all the memory exchanges they had performed so far.

The sound of metal and pistons did not even make him turn, as the energy field was too well known to him. When the other mech sat down, slow and careful, being sure that he was not intruding, Ironhide leaned that way, sure of the support to be granted to him.

"You are brooding."

"Nah, leave that to you, Prime."

Optimus smiled slightly, knowing it to be mostly true. "What bothers you?"

Ironhide shook his helm. "Ratchet showed me a piece of myself I don't think I like." He was still examining the warrior-based memory reflexes, and the newly made medic's reaction to what had been standard protocol for himself back then, apparently.

Optimus was well aware of what was passing between the two members of his cohort who had served as each other's anchors for so long. Not to mention that Ratchet had already shared with him that Ironhide had been troubled after their latest share, and why.

"Standard warrior memory protocols?" Optimus asked, his field flaring enough to brush comfortingly against that of the mech who teeked so young to him, and yet was still the same Ironhide he'd depended on since he, himself, was a mechling.

"I know I now have the memory banks to incorporate all I ever was, and far more vorns than any mech should see on top of that, but... how does one survive the loss of so much experience that teaches the spark to care, without becoming as twisted inside as any 'Con ever was?" Ironhide asked his Prime.

"It was... perhaps... precisely why so many war-builds did become so twisted, my friend," Optimus responded, understanding fully the depth of Ironhide's concern. "You recognized very early the need to externally preserve the memories that allowed you to keep your compassion, before your warrior coding overwrote them. You had far more extensive archives than any warrior I knew, and trained those under you to do the same. You revisited them any time you feared you were losing your core, whether in your own archives, or, as time went on, by sharing with your cohort. You have always preferred to remember in the arms of a lover."

Ironhide smiled at that, knowing it was cheating, letting him grasp and internalize better than just reading data files, without wasting the time of true integration. "Works for me." He then cycled air through his vents, before looking at Optimus. "Thank you. Something tells me that I would have let that fall by the wayside if I hadn't had you to give me a reason to never stop caring."

"We all anchored each other in that way," Optimus said gravely. "We still do. My memories are always yours to share, and I know the same is true of every member of our cohort."

Optimus smiled with his own long memories of Ironhide's particular enjoyment and skill at initiating the same kind of memory shares he now was pursuing so relentlessly with Ratchet, proving it was as much a function of his spark as it was the ancient warrior's memory protocols. Protocols which Ratchet had made sure were not a part of this new version of Ironhide, Optimus knew. Ratchet had never quite made his peace with that aspect of warrior coding, and over the eons had come up with alternatives that some of their warriors had upgraded with.

"I'll take you up on it when I'm done making sure Ratchet's actually worked through the stress of the war," Ironhide said wryly, admitting to an ulterior motive for the frequent memory merges.

"Just make sure he doesn't know it is for his own good," Optimus warned with mock severity, even as his spark washed with gratitude at the gift of having this version of his guardian and friend among them.

"One thing I didn't have to learn the hard way," Ironhide promised him. "That nanny-bot never has known how to let others take care of him, as these memories proved!"


	6. Ferula

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ratchet finally meets his Prime, and faces the pain of not being able to join his cohort when they go to battle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Present" portions of this chapter set sometimes between chapter 12 and the epilogue of Patronus.
> 
> Makes minor and unspecific mention of creating sparks without the AllSpark. Contains non-explicit description of robotic injury.

_Ferula: Binds a broken limb with a splint and bandages, tightly wrapped_

Optimus Prime was led to his quarters by Sideswipe, while Sunstreaker brought up the rear; unnecessary precautions in the young leader's processor, but it made his guards feel better. When they reached his quarters, Sideswipe insisted on sweeping the rooms for devices of either spying or explosive capability, while Sunstreaker inspected the hallway outside. For all that the precautions bothered Prime, being too aware that he did not deserve more safety than any other mech, his biggest fear revolved around either of them ever being injured in doing this duty.

At last, he was able to dispense with their service, sending them on into their shared berth-room off to the side of the suite, so he could settle back and meditate awhile. Once he was certain his processors was clear enough, he would send for Ironhide, and Ratchet.

The problem was, he was still so uncertain of this. While Ironhide had used the Guardian bond to anchor him in the aftermath of Megatron's rejection, it struck Optimus as wrong for him to bond too closely with any given mech, let alone more than one. He was supposed to be equally available to all his race, as the emissary of the AllSpark. Perhaps the AllSpark, itself, would lead him to understand this better in his meditations.

* * *

 _Present_

"So he's always been an idiot," Ironhide snorted.

Ratchet chuckled. "Felt you ought to have that as background, since we're about to get into how the core of our cohort formed, before it expanded and we created Bumblebee. He shared it with me, the first time he was recovering from a near-fatal wound."

"Idiot," Ironhide repeated. "What did he figure out?"

"Hush and do it right, rust-bucket," Ratchet told him with fond exasperation, sliding his processor from their close connections to the deeper ones, with all their past still bubbling to the top.

* * *

Ratchet resisted the urge to draw more closely to Ironhide as they walked the short distance between the warrior's quarters and Prime's own. Optimus had summoned them a joor after he had returned from his failed negotiations in Altihex, and Ratchet could not move past the awareness that he was about to meet his Prime, a mech whom Vox had served faithfully for so many vorns, but who for the newly onlined medic was automatically revered as their race's living link to their very source of life. Though his coding recognized his Prime as a member of his cohort, another portion of the medic's processors and spark demanded awe, an emotion that was not entirely comfortable for him.

It would have been easier, perhaps, to have onlined to the mech he was about to meet, rather than grappling with all of the build up and the frustration of the delay in completing his cohort bonds. He was suspicious, too, that Ironhide had waited not because of the dictates of cohort tradition, but because he wanted ammunition to use against Prime's reluctance. Adherence to tradition and formalities were certainly not two of Ironhide's stronger suits.

The warrior moved closer to the medic, making a small rumbling noise in his vocalizer. "Try to remember one thing," he said. "Prime wasn't always like you'll see him now. And sometimes, he still wishes he could be the mech he was sparked as, not realizing that's the mech I follow, not the office."

"I should have integrated some of Vox's memories before this," Ratchet grumbled, though his field brushed against Ironhide's in gratitude for the reassurance. Ironhide signaled their arrival, and the scanners on the door confirmed their identities, sliding open.

Ironhide swept in with Ratchet following close behind him, the warrior noting that the twins had absented themselves, which was a mercy. He liked them well-enough, thought the world of Sunstreaker's fighting ability, but they tended to make mechs nervous.

"Optimus, meet Ratchet," Ironhide said without preamble or anything approaching formality. He then went and leaned up against the wall, watching.

Optimus, who had come to a standing position on the door's opening, surveyed the new mech, appreciating the solid build on one level, while he took in the unconventional color-coding with an actual arch of his facial plates that indicated curiosity. "Greetings, Ratchet. I do wish this meeting had not been delayed so greatly."

Finally in the presence of the imposing mech, Ratchet's cohort and medical coding took over. He initiated scans of superbly built form, taking note of the ways in which the AllSpark's energy infused and intertwined with Prime's own. Like Ironhide, Optimus had his share of older injuries that were in the process of self-repair, though at an increased rate due to the AllSpark's influence.

"There was no reason to delay my onlining for your return, Optimus," the medic found himself saying, taking his cue for Ironhide and dispensing with formalities. "The only thing you've missed is Ironhide trying to protect me from a pack of rust-locked medics. I am pleased to finally meet you."

Optimus gave a fond smile at his guardian who looked smugly content. "Oh?"

"Slagging nanny-bots," Ironhide snorted.

"It's not as if you have any experience with being one," Optimus said blandly. He then focused on Ratchet at Ironhide's indignant sputters. "Forgive him; he's too used to trying to save inexperienced mechs from themselves."

"From the files he's shared, it seems like one of those was you," Ratchet said, his systems quickly relaxing in the presence of the mech his coding affirmed as cohort. He found himself regarding the impressive frame and vital energies of his Prime with far more than just medical interest as his spark spun suggestively in his chest much the same way it had been doing with his own personal nanny-bot.

Optimus ducked his head a little to hide the warmth of his optics, knowing it was true. While the twins, his assigned guards, had willfully helped him experience life outside the palace, it had been Ironhide who nurse-maided him from the fall out of some of those more interesting adventures, and even saved his armor once or twice from the danger he had found. When he looked at Ratchet, he was smiling faintly.

"Often." He then indicated his supply of refreshments. "May I get you both a cube?"

"Something light, Prime." The use of the title was a clear indicator Ironhide was concerned he'd be needed shortly.

Ratchet gave Ironhide a glance as the warrior sat in a comfortable chair that adjusted itself to his frame. Ratchet did the same, noting the buzz of comms, the slip into formality and the combination of anxiousness and anticipation welling up along their indistinct bond. "Same for me," he added, wondering if he would at last be given clearance to accompany Ironhide's unit if the war-mech was about to be called away.

"Sensible," Prime said, but with a hint of resignation to the fact Ironhide expected trouble. "Sunstreaker and Sideswipe should be rested enough for battle, if you are correct that they will strike in the near future, Ironhide."

"Good, but push it off for now; my scouts will warn us and you don't need to brood on it right now," Ironhide told him. "Ratchet won his way with Torque. Pretty certain he can make decent field repairs now; just have to get him battle trained." Ironhide's optics glinted a little in anticipation of getting to teach Ratchet how to handle himself.

"I have far more in the way of defensive coding than the medics who have been accompanying your unit," Ratchet objected, "and I know for a fact few of them are battle trained. I want the training, too, but why delay putting me in the field when I could make sure more of your warriors come back?"

"Because I'm not listening to Torque's recriminations about a waste of resources on an untried experiment," Ironhide snapped at him. "You will prove your defensive capability before you see the field."

Optimus Prime made an attention gathering surge in his fields, looking at the pair of them. "I concur with Ironhide in this, Ratchet. I will not risk you until it is certain you are as capable as needed. I need Ironhide free to be on the front line, something he has difficulty with if there is an unprotected non-combatant on the field."

"Stupid protocols," Ironhide muttered.

Rachet forced himself not to object to yet another delay, especially with the nudge from the memories Ironhide had shared of Vox of just how divided the warrior's attention became when there was someone on the field who did not have adequate defenses. His cohor-mate's guardian protocols were at times at odds with his warrior coding.

Optimus turned his attention to his guardian. "You are as you were sparked to be, and this war has forced you into functions beyond the scope of your coding. Unfortunately, I was not successful in recruiting mecha with tactical upgrades and training in Altihex. They are still claiming neutrality."

"And when Megatron decides that's not enough," Ironhide growled before cutting himself off. He sat up, optics losing some of their sheen as he listened to a report coming in. "Prime... My scout net has three holes in it," he said bleakly, having resorted to a diamond pattern scout mesh, with reports that cycled on a complex algorithm to prevent their headquarters from being approached easily or unseen.

Optimus rose smoothly, with a look at the closed door to the chamber his guards shared, the only betrayal he was summoning them. "Ratchet," he said aloud. "Please be at home here, or in your own quarters. We will continue upon our return."

"The slag I will," Ratchet growled, his spark casing once again feeling like it was being dissolved by acid pellets at the thought of his cohort facing the enemy alone. "I'll be in medical assisting with any casualties that come in, and they'd better not be the two of you. I'm cleared for that much, at least."

Ironhide gave a snort, but he swept out to go to the army, barely ahead of the big mech, Optimus Prime, and two smaller but very agile fighters in shining silver and bronze colors. Of that pair, the silver one actually gave ratchet a jaunty smile, full of confidence in the outcome of the future battle.

* * *

There was little time for the other medics to object to Ratchet's presence as casualties began pouring in from what proved to be a very significant engagement. Nor could they have found any reason to as he handled each repair assigned to him with competence, his pain and frustration at being left behind shunted aside for more pressing concerns. When it was noted that his mannerisms and EM field seemed to have a calming effect on warriors who normally were so at odds with the medics attending them, several of the the more difficult and intractable personalities were sent his way.

It was a matter of easing pain enough to make it bearable, rather than offlining haptic sensors completely, Ratchet reflected as he worked on a heavily armed red minibot whose damage would definitely have had other medics putting him in mild stasis. Ratchet knew from even his limited sharing with Ironhide that when sensors were offlined completely, a war-build would assume the damage was more grievous. Keeping sensors partially online and the mech aware assured the patients they would be capable of being back in action soon.

Ratchet also didn't waste time making repairs that their own self-repair could handle. His adoption of some of Ironhide's speech patterns seemed to help as well. If he was going to have to work so closely with warriors, maybe talking like one would help, and he certainly heard it enough.

"Ow! Hurts like the Pit!" the minibot growled.

"Stop slagging moving, or I will put your aft offline for this," Ratchet warned sharply.

The minibot grumbled, but complied.

Ratchet's preoccupation with the casualties allowed him to shunt aside the occasional bursts across the badly-formed cohort links. That information was handled by his secondary processors, decoded to help him prepare for the fact that Ironhide had been injured, though had not suffered severe handicap from it. It was only as the pace eased that the medic allowed himself to worry and consciously process the input from Ironhide, and to a far lesser extent, from Prime, whose sensations were being filtered through the medic's nebulous bond with the warrior. Ironhide's irritation overlaid the damaged relays, indicating that at least one injury he had taken was actually impeding his primary function. Prime's fainter radiation was of concern and second-guessing.

Ratchet guessed the two would be among the last to make their appearance in medical, along with the twins who guarded Prime when Ironhide was unable. He half considered meeting them on their way, but knew that their anger at his leaving the safety of headquarters would not aid him in his goal of getting his cohort-mate repaired.

Once the two were within the perimeter, however, if they went anywhere other than medical, they were going to find an irate medic on their afts.

The guards entered ahead of the other two, each assisting a smaller mech to berths, neither of whom was more than 'walking wounded'. The bronze one was immediately leaving the medical bay, but the silver one remained, as Prime and Ironhide entered... with Prime helping keep the lower half of Ironhide's arm pressed against the upper portion.

"Sideswipe, continue helping get the wounded in," Prime ordered, and the silver mech nodded, rushing to join his brother.

Ratchet actually growled at one of the medics when he started to approach the warrior, his own scans already assessing the damage. A buzz of comms passed between the other medics, who as one turned their attention to continuing the remaining repairs and sorting various tools for cleaning.

"Help him into the cradle, Prime," Ratchet motioned to the reclining chair-like apparatus he signaled to adjust to Ironhide's frame and hold the two portions of Ironhide's nearly severed arm stable. Ratchet's brief surge of anger at the medic who would have interfered had been replaced with calm confidence and the utter rightness of being the one to repair his cohort-mate.

"Don't fight me, Ironhide," Prime commanded, before he lifted the other mech bodily. Ironhide had tensed but the larger mech swept him up and into place as gently as if Ironhide were one of those rare creations made between mechs, instead of from the AllSpark.

"Just a scratch," Ironhide grumbled. Flickers of how he had incurred the wound, throwing his cannon and arm up into the path of an energy blade aimed for a smaller fighter came thorough the bond to let Ratchet know the precise type of weapon and angle.

Ratchet snorted at the description, though felt a burst of spark-deep pride in his cohort-mate's protective nature. He connected the arm of the cradle into the two halves of Ironhide's arm, stabilizing it and routing some of the arms functions through it. His main medical interface cable smoothly snaked into the appropriate port so he could internally monitor Ironhide's functions and make adjustments to his sensor levels, while several of his sub-cables connected directly with the cradle that held specialized tools for the repairs. "If this is a scratch, I'm not looking forward to your definition of a serious injury," he commented as he adjusted Ironhide's pain levels.

Ironhide focused on Optimus then. "You dare poke your helm out of here without me or one of those glitch-taken twins, and I promise you I will be tearing it out of your plates in the practice room, hear me!"

Their Prime let his love and pride for Ironhide swell out, suffusing both his cohort-mates. "I will make the tour of medical." He then focused more narrowly on Ratchet. ::Make him rest. Then I wish you to join me in my quarters, Ratchet. I need to know a more objective view of injury reports than Torque or the others grant me.::

::Get yourself fixed up first!:: Ratchet commanded, having already scanned Prime's minor injuries and transmitted the results to the medical server. "Take a rest, Ironhide. I'll make sure he doesn't leave without one of the twins, and this repair will go better without you twitching every klik." He reinforced his suggestion with a firm command to the warrior's systems to shut down, while leaving enough subroutines online to give Ironhide the security that he could quickly rouse as needed.

Ironhide accepted the commands willingly; he really was somewhat traumatized by this injury. Not for the arm itself, but the damage to his beloved cannon that would take time to repair and recalibrate to its perfect condition.

* * *

Ratchet had needed to fully detach and retool portions of Ironhide's upper and lower arm segments when all was said and done, but had finally made the last connection and weld to his satisfaction nearly a half orn later, this on top of the already two orn he had been in medical since the start of the battle. At one point, Torque had observed him without saying a word, but Ratchet had the feeling his mentor was satisfied with his work.

The cannon would take more time, and some of the repairs and calibrations were ones Ironhide would need to make. It was tempting to keep going, but a comm from Prime had him recalling his earlier promise to report, and he was well aware of being too undercharged to start work on the intricate weapon that was as much a part of Ironhide as his arm was.

At first, he thought it was only the pain of leaving his cohort-mate offline in medical that had his frame trembling on the walk toward Prime's quarters. But when he was half way there, he stopped in his tracks, realizing that over the past three orns, he had, for the first time, worked on actual mecha rather than simulations, and one of those had been a member of his own cohort, seriously injured.

With a rumble, he forced himself to complete the journey to Prime's quarters, pulling himself back together to make his report so he could collapse in private, get a little recharge, and return to medical to finish making Ironhide whole.

Optimus Prime, however, was nowhere near as distant as their encounters had implied. Before Ratchet could even touch the door sensor, Prime was opening it, reaching out, a hand going under the medic's elbow to steady him. "You are in poor shape," he said, and guided Ratchet into the chamber, letting the door seal after. He supported him not to a chair but to the berth that was just around a corner from the desk itself, hidden but not separated from his workspace.

"Slag it, I'm fine!" Ratchet cursed, sitting on the berth as his frame began shaking again, relays firing in seemingly random ways in response to the emotions he'd successfully suppressed and the exhaustion that finally was making itself known. "Was safe the whole slagging time you were both out there, and you haven't recharged yet, either," he said sharply as he scanned the massive mech.

"You fought an even harder battle, my friend," Prime said in a low, warm voice. "You saved the existence of many who might not have seen another cycle." The bigger hand remained on him, but the other went up and pulled a reserve cube from subspace. "I have refreshed. You have not. Drink this, lay down, and I will allow you to be the guardian in my chamber when I do recharge," he offered. "After all, Ironhide is unavailable, and the twins are currently determining the damage done in this battle."

"You're overstating things," Ratchet grumbled as he tried to force his hand to steady enough to fuel, only to find Prime's large hands wrapping around his own to still the shaking. With a quiet, static whine, the medic gave in to the demands of his cohort coding to lean into the support that was being offered, despite his loathing with himself for needing it. It just felt too good, too right to allow those hands to guide the cube to his intake so his systems could take the fuel he desperately needed. Even more right was the field that wrapped his own... a stranger, yet known and completely trusted by both his coding and his spark.

Prime settled more comfortably on the berth once Ratchet had drained the cube, having controlled the flow so the medic did not wind up purging, and then indicated the medic should settle close. "You are... my cohort. I know you have only formed a tentative level connection even with Ironhide, but I will not allow any mech of mine to suffer when I might hold some comfort for them," Optimus explained in that low, steady pulse of his voice. "I wish you to recharge, and stay close, so that I know you are safe."

There were countless things Ratchet could have said in response to Prime's words and the care and support so vivid in his fields. Not the least of these were his own questions about the reluctance he knew Prime had to forming new bonds, despite Ironhide's attempts to shield the new mech from that knowledge. But here, in this place, all that mattered was pulling Optimus closer even as Ratchet collapsed into the comfort of the berth, wanting nothing more than what his coding demanded: to have his cohort-mate closely felt as he slipped into recharge.

Optimus let Ratchet pull him, shifted them both so his larger frame was a solid resting point, coaxing his armor to shift just enough to make their contact points smoother. This medic was a breath of hope, and now Optimus could understand the AllSpark better. Through Ironhide, he knew one kind of strength. Now, through Ratchet, he would learn another.

"I am here, always." His words were a gentle promise that only deactivation could undo.

* * *

 _Present_

Ratchet held the broad form of his lover close as they slowly emerged from the depths of the memories, his own spark feeling light and unburdened recalling that particular file. It was a memory he was fond of, knowing as he did just how hard Ironhide had bullied to get his way with his Prime when it came to forming a true cohort.

Ironhide was resting his helm over the spark that spun beneath the plate of Ratchet's chest, letting that nearness be enough to protract the mellow peace in his own spark. "I don't get one thing, Ratch. Why'd Prime change his views on you so swiftly? What did he learn that pushed him so hard?"

Ratchet hummed thoughtfully, stroking the cabling and plating of his lover's back. "The AllSpark suggested in no uncertain terms that if he was to survive this war with a spark still worthy to be Prime, he needed more than the selfless bond his station gave him with every Cybertronian. He needed to be close, to be selfish in a way, if having a cohort could ever be called selfish. You knew that, too, on instinct, I think. Creating new cohorts was almost unheard of, but you paved the way with Prime and me, and others followed that lead. I don't think we could have made it through the war without those bonds."

Ironhide's optics brightened. "We made anchor points. And that showed others they could. Building a way for our mechs to heal, when they were basically losing pieces of themselves with every extinguished spark." He grasped it easier, he felt on an instinctive level, than his first 'life' could have, no matter what his instincts had been at that point.

Ratchet's field pulsed with pleased amusement. "Exactly. You process fast with a little less warrior coding clogging up the relays."

Ironhide snorted at him. "And you don't annoy me as much as most nanny-bots would," he teased right back.


	7. Diffindo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ironhide and Ratchet's training session is interrupted by the return of a deep cover agent who has great significance to Optimus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Content:** Mild violence, spark-intimacy
> 
> Optimus Prime/Jazz/Ratchet/Ironhide

_Diffindo: Makes seams split open._

::Ratchet! Incoming!::

Ratchet immediately reinforced the armor on his back with a surge of energy to his shielding. His mid-range sensors picked up the incoming ordinance an instant later, informing his response systems that his shielding would be sufficient for an indirect hit. He calculated the trajectory and path by the nanoklik as his extenders continued micro welding connections in the mangled inner workings of the warrior's thigh until the last possible moment.

Proximity alarms went off just as he made the final weld and withdrew the extenders, covered the downed mech with his entire frame and used his bulk to roll them over several times to the side. He locked his joints to hold on tight as the impact sent them airborne for a short distance.

His scans confirmed that the connections had held, giving the mech limited mobility ::Get out of here. I'll cover you!:: he commanded, turning to face the incoming attacker his sensors now warned him of.

The black mech was on him before he could confirm that the downed warrior had retreated, and all of Ratchet's subroutines turned from repair to battle as Ironhide made his attack. While the ordinance had only been as real as the code pack Ratchet had uploaded prior to the training session, there was nothing simulated about the clash of metal on metal and the snap-buzz of shielding as their bulky forms collided.

"Good," Ironhide complimented, but he shifted his mass in the next instant, pulling Ratchet off balance. "Need to learn your center of gravity more."

Ratchet did not respond, intently focused on adjusting his gyro sensors and getting his pedes firmly beneath him even as he brought his fist up hard against the warrior's audial. His spark spun fast and hot in the excitement of battle, the energies and forces of hand-to-hand combat something he found himself enjoying far more than he'd anticipated, especially with the way his now fully-bonded cohort-mate's own field surged with each clash.

Ironhide shook off the blow, compensating the momentary auditory loss by increasing the gain on his other side. He then feinted for a punch low, before using his entire frame to force his shoulder into Ratchet's faceplates, checking only the amount of force, but not the intent. With full contact, this would lead to optic loss, if Ratchet did not counter or dodge.

The medic angled his helm just in time, and the blow denting his cheek spar but not hitting the more sensitive components with direct force. He grunted with the impact, dismissing HUD training warnings of the damage to circuitry that would have been done with a fully powered blow. The force had him stumbling backward, but he steadied himself and launched his own attack, grabbing Ironhide by the inner edge of his his shoulder armor, his digits extending and transforming into razor sharp tools. His medical sensors read the fluctuating frequencies of Ironhide's own shielding so they could slip underneath the armor and sever connections.

Warnings buzzed in the warrior's awareness, and he decided to take a page from Ratchet's earlier maneuvers, dropping them both and then flipping them over so he had Ratchet pinned, jarring the medic's grip as he did so. "Now this is a pretty picture," Ironhide leered, fields pulsing hard against his 'captive'.

"This how you train all your warriors?" Ratchet's own fields pushing back hard with the energy of his fast-spinning spark, along with several lurid images along their bond of recent activities in Prime's large berth. A distraction, he hoped, as his razor-edged extenders snaked out into the all-too-precious circuitry of Ironhide's cannons.

"Only the sexy ones," Ironhide quipped. The distraction almost worked, but those cannons were very much Ironhide's pride and joy in life. He yelped and shoved off, getting distance between them once more rather than risk his guns to a sneaky nanny-bot.

"Which, judging by your interface drive, is everyone?" Ratchet teased as he jumped to his pedes, feeling smug at the ploy and his cohort-mate's reaction. Medical coding was slagging helpful in hand-to-hand, he'd found. "Bring it on, old mech," he taunted, activating the frame saw on his left arm. Sparring protocols wouldn't allow him to do as much damage with it as he could in combat, but it was still a formidable weapon.

Ironhide thought of how to counter that thing, when the simulation came to an abrupt end, and both mechs heard a voice over their comms.

::Report to Prime's office,:: Sunstreaker said, tone gruff and terse. ::We've got problems.::

Ironhide powered off and eliminated the training blocks in his programing, looking at Ratchet. "Slag it, I was just getting revved up," he said, turning for the door.

* * *

 _Present_

Ratchet was shaking with mirth as they momentarily backed away from the deeper memory-share link.

"What?" Ironhide grumbled, his spark spinning fast and field pushing hard into his anchor's own in response to the memories.

"Some things, including your drive, are exactly the same about you," Ratchet teased, sending a surge to his lover's circuits through the hard lines, revving him up even more, deliberately allowing Ironhide to flip their positions and pin him down hard on the floor of the locked hangar.

"Speaking of which, why are you showing me _this_ memory before the all those ones in Prime's berth?" Ironhide rumbled deeply, hands caressing the extremely sensitive medic's digits that he held with his own.

Ratchet's entire frame shivered in response to the touch along those sensors. "I promised that Optimus would get to share that set when he returns. No fair for me to do all the work keeping you sated."

"Mmmm." Ironhide leaned in and nipped at Ratchet's jawline. "More?" he asked, being contrary and looking for more memories instead of pushing the energy spiral between them any harder.

"You sure?" Ratchet asked, backing away his field momentarily and regarding his lover intently. "This next set gets rough."

"Ratchet... it was a war. That we were on the losing side of, from all I can find in the data-banks on my own. I know the memories are not going to be all fun." Ironhide's voice was low and serious. "Show me. I can at least know you're right here with me, instead of lost to it."

 

* * *

The scene in Prime's office was not very reassuring. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe were flanking a dirty, injured mech, not quite a mini class but definitely built for speed and stealth above all else. Under the grease and soot, the mech was a base silver, with highlights in blue. The most interesting thing was that the mech relied on the uncommon visor style optic, which implied several visual sensor upgrades.

The twins were looking uneasy, and Prime looked... angry, as it became obvious that they were keeping the mech in 'custody' and away from their leader.

"What in all the slagging pits is going on?" Ironhide demanded as he focused on the mech, trying to place him. His memory files were pinging that he should know the mech, but not supplying the designation. Which meant he'd made an error in a memory dump, and that was infuriating enough without seeing how irate Prime was.

"Ratchet, scan Jazz for damage," Prime ordered tersely. "And you two, stand down. He is no danger to me."

"You don't know that!" Sideswipe snapped back at his Prime, but at least they weren't actively prodding the 'prisoner'.

Jazz. That designation opened a critical memory file for Ironhide, and he menaced Sideswipe with his own fields, glaring at Sunstreaker across the way. "I've got this. Get out of here so we can debrief him, or at least sit your afts down!" Ironhide growled.

"Prime, they are just doing their job," the battered mech told them all. "Been gone... too long."

"He slagging went 'Con," Sunstreaker growled.

"He was deep cover, and you weren't on the list to know," Ironhide responded in an even lower tone, knowing now why his own memory files had not supplied him with Jazz's designation at first. He had set them up that way, and Prime's use of the designation had been the trigger to release the blocks.

The twins looked doubtful, but allowed Ratchet, at least, closer for a more thorough scan of the mech in question. The medic found a host of issues, though none critical. The seeping energon lines would correct themselves once he was properly fueled, as would the damage to his shielding nanites. Some of the structural damage would need a medic's care, however.

"Nothing that can't wait an orn or two, Prime, but he needs fuel immediately," Ratchet reported. Taking his cues from the complex but clear feelings along the cohort bond, Ratchet wrapped a steadying arm around the smaller mech and helped him to a chair, unsubspacing a reserve cube.

"Thanks...Ratchet? Like that. Nice to see a friendly medic." Jazz shuddered once, remembering where he had just come from.

"Jazz, you need rest and repair, but we have to know; what did Megatron gain?" Prime asked, trying to ignore the twins who had fallen back but still looked ready to tear the mech apart at the drop of a cube.

"Managed to sabotage the defenses at Science City. Think it was Starscream that managed that... got in, and..." The visor went dark as he sipped at the much-needed fuel. "I realized too late, that they didn't mean to just take the research at the University. Didn't offer quarter, enlistment, nothing; just..." Jazz couldn't continue, remembering the horror of what he'd barely escaped to bring word back.

Ratchet felt both Prime and Ironhide reel at the news, horrified and self-recriminating in equal parts, with an added measure of rage at the loss of innocents from the warrior. Rage that was directed toward himself for failing to see the attack coming.

"They did not even have a chance to transmit a distress signal," Prime said softly.

Ratchet could only send his support along the bond, holding as steady as he could at his own shock at the news. Jazz shuddered again, shaking his helm.

"I barely made it out ahead of the gestalt team that came in to literally tear the towers down."

Sunstreaker's fields flared as hard as Sideswipe's did on hearing that. "Science City... gone? All those scientists, engineers, civilians?" Sideswipe demanded, wanting to say this was all a lie, all a Decepticon trick.

"Which gestalt?" Prime questioned softly.

"Wasn't Hook's team... but it was another of their class," Jazz said. "Looks like the whole class went over for him."

"What?" Ironhide roared. "He will have them destroying the very places they have built and maintained."

Ratchet's attention was momentarily drawn to the silver and bronze guards, who were staring at one another as though a thousand things were passing between them, both via the buzz of their comm link and likely the bond they shared as twins.

Sunstreaker looked his way and caught his stare, and growled at him aggressively, but Sideswipe caught his arm and he relented. The medic was quite certain the aggression was aimed at the constructor class at large, not at him, despite the similarity of his frame and portions of his coding that came from that class.

"Megatron's tactics make no sense to me. Why would he simply destroy Science City? Why not seek allies and support, even under duress? Even at his most mad, this is not the mech I knew," Optimus said quietly, in a defeated tone.

"Prime... whatever secrets he wanted could have been in the processors of those mechs," Jazz pointed out. "Destroying them and razing the city? Whatever information and data he wanted, he is now the only one who has it. No way to back track and prepare ourselves against it."

Ironhide growled. "The War Academy contracted some projects through there," he said when various optics looked his way.

Sunstreaker looked disgusted. "Now what in the name of the AllSpark are we going to do?!" he asked in full-blown pessimistic anger.

"Do you believe there may be survivors?" Optimus asked Jazz.

Ratchet could feel the desperation in Prime's field and through the bond. There were simply too few Autobots to defend every city, and Science City's own defenses had been formidable... and useless.

Jazz had to shake his helm again. "I was outside the city when the last explosion took place...and it's what tore my plating up." His words made Sideswipe's optics blaze in shock, a static charge building on the silver guard from how frenetic his shields became.

"Wait, I thought you said Megatron had just sent in a gestalt to tear down the towers... surely Megatron wouldn't destroy his own asset," Sideswipe protested when no one else was able to bring themselves to say a word in their horror and shock.

"Whether he intended to or whether the device was larger than even Megatron planned, either way, there is no chance any 'Con who was still in the city survived," Jazz said. "He is confident he has the troops to spare."

"That's... " Prime was horrified beyond words, and wondering if there was any way to save his world at all in the face of that kind of monstrosity. His own Protector, that diabolical and wasteful of lives, was something he could not truly cope with. Everyone saw Jazz move, just a little, as if he wanted to go to Prime, and then force himself back by rocking back onto his aft in the chair with a glance at the twins, who both had lunged toward him when he began to move.

"I have to ready the Army," Ironhide managed to say, trying to focus on anything at all in the face of that tactic by his former leader.

"To do what?" Ratchet burst out, incredulously, the fatalism along both of his bonds overwhelming him. It felt like both of his cohort-mates were preparing to die, to sacrifice themselves, and his spark snarled in protest.

Ironhide met his optics. "To resist. And to try and find someone with an honest-to-spark edge for leading them into battle!"

"No, Ironhide." Prime shuttered his optics, helm down, before he continued. "Sunstreaker, find me the memory units Sentinel Prime put aside for me. It's time I integrated all the experience of those who were forced to do war."

Sunstreaker stiffened, even as Ironhide clenched his fists helplessly. This was not what any of them had wanted.

"Most of those are Lord High Protector modules," Jazz warned. "They will directly contradict your Prime coding, and will not fit well with your original coding, either."

Optimus looked at Jazz as he brought his head up, then to Ironhide, and then at his loyal guards. "Sunstreaker, if I spark-merged Jazz, would you accept his loyalty? Ratchet and Ironhide, can you accept a new member in our cohort?" Jazz had jerked as if struck at the first question, and now just stared ahead with disbelief radiating off his frazzled shields.

"If anyone could anchor you against that," Ironhide said very slowly, "it would be a member of your original cohort."

"I thought..." Jazz murmured, finding his words. "Sentinel said you couldn't bond with individuals as Prime. Other than your Protector."

"It's traditional," Optimus told the small silver mech, rising to come around and be closer to him now that the twins were 'discussing' the matter in their silent fashion. "But Ironhide... showed me it was not a hard and fast rule of existence. The AllSpark, as well, is of the opinion that I must be grounded in the lives of my people, to maintain us all."

"I still don't like it, but... you can't betray a cohort bond," Sunstreaker said, sullenly, once the silent conference ended. He was confident that Prime's spark was too fierce to be damaged or tricked by any lesser mech's, no matter his personal opinion on the matter of using his own techniques to interrogate Jazz.

"Jazz," Optimus continued, placing hands on the mech's shoulders. "Knowing what I do now, truly having a cohort for the first time since my reformat, I would have chosen differently then, had Sentinel permitted... or perhaps even if he hadn't."

Jazz reached out, then up, hand coming to rest on that mobile face that was so different, and yet... achingly familiar to the lone survivor of the long lost cohort. "You already own my spark, Prime. As my leader, or as a mech." He looked over at Ironhide, then at the more unfamiliar medic. "I'm not the best mech at saying things like 'please', being more used to sneaking my way into what I want, but..."

Ironhide chuckled, dry and rough in the face of so much loss, but seeing hope in this moment. "Help us keep him on all his gyroscopes, and we'll get on fine, Jazz." He waved his hand at Optimus with a fond knowledge for how hard their Prime worked himself.

"From the little I know, we are going to need all the help we can get," Ratchet added, inwardly overwhelmed by the intense and swiftly changing moods along his new bonds.

Jazz looked back at Prime, and the quiet between them sizzled with expectations and emotions.

"Sideswipe, Sunstreaker..." Prime rumbled, making the twins leave. Each of them gave Ratchet a firm look of 'protect him', not quite trusting Ironhide to be enough, if the silver mech tried something funny.

Ratchet transmitted a swift, acknowledging glyph to the guards, knowing that their unique sparks did not allow them form a cohort with others, and feeling a sense of loss at that as they departed.

"Let Ratchet care for your damage first, Jazz," Optimus said once the twins were out of the way, moving back to make room for the medic. "It will take the twins time to find the memory units."

"And you're getting a decent recharge before you even think about trying them, Optimus," Ironhide growled at the younger mech. "Can think of worse ways than welcoming a new member to our cohort to put you there."

"I don't need much, Prime," Jazz told them all, knowing his self-repair was working full-tilt on fixing the leaks, and the rest of it could wait.

"Let me be the judge of that," Ratchet grumbled, lowering himself to the smaller mech's level and going to work on some of the worst of the leaking. He could feel Prime's trust in the mech, his anticipation and suddenly realized hope, radiating through their bond, and his cohort coding made him want to do the same, though a part of him remained wary. Who knew what had been done to Jazz while he was deep cover? If it had been discovered that he had a connection to Prime, Megatron would not hesitate to use him as a weapon. Fortunately, Prime's spark was far too powerful for anyone to be able to be successful in any sort of attack once their own was exposed to it.

Along the bonds, background data flowed in from both Ironhide and Prime. Ironhide gave memories of having to track the new Prime down to sectors where noble mechs never went. Imagery of low-class menial and labor mechs came to mind, with Prime being found in the small quarters assigned to a courier mech... the mech Ratchet had just met known as Jazz.

Prime's own data flow was the utter confidence that having Jazz back, on the fully intimate level he intended, would be the solution to fighting the conflict of downloading pure warrior coding and experience into his core. There was, even more than that thought for himself though, an over-reaching sense of finally being just and right with the last part of his life before being claimed by Sentinel.

"I will hardline and monitor the entire process," Ratchet pronounced firmly in response, knowing that Prime's guards were trusting him to be the one to remain cautious. "Normal procedure after deep cover missions would be a complete processor scan. Merging with Prime accomplishes more than that, but I will still be able to abort the process if things go wrong."

"Wouldn't want anything less," Jazz said quietly, his visor glued on his Prime and field swirling with unhidden yearning that went far beyond the physical.

"I'm going to connect with Prime, just to back him up." Ironhide grinned a little. "Won't be so bad now, instead of having to go pull him out of your place secretly, Jazz." Optimus ducked his helm to hide the the look of embarrassment on his faceplates, remembering too many times of just that, and barely getting back to the palace before Sentinel knew he'd been gone.

Still, he hesitated once more, meeting Jazz's optic-band. "You are certain? It's not just for... duty?"

The response that question drew from Jazz's vocalizer was more of a whine as the battered mech took to his pedes and crossed the distance between himself and the massive mech. With an inborn grace, he climbed up the large frame and rested his helm against Prime's own. "You even need to ask?" he managed to say, though his voice was largely static.

"Yes," Optimus told him, resonating his deeply held belief in individual freedom. He brought his arms up, though, supporting Jazz before turning to head for the berth with him, knowing the others would follow.

::Why are you so certain that Jazz can anchor him when he integrates the memories and coding?:: Ratchet pinged his cohort-mate as they followed, his tone and the accompanying glyphs those of curiosity rather than doubt. Ratchet could fully understand Optimus's desire to reforge a bond that had been broken in his partial reformat as Prime, but could not quite follow the logic that this mech could somehow make the difference when it came to what could amount to madness-inducing coding conflict.

::Because it's Jazz.:: Ironhide let his amusement at the far younger Optimus come through. ::They were part of the nucleus of what grew to be a decent cohort, but that's not why. It's tied up in the fact that despite Sentinel's pretty heavy-handed demand of Alpha Trion to tailor the reformat in a way to 'alleviate Optimus of his sentimental attachments', Optimus made his way time and again to Jazz, to try and sort out who he had become. It first took Jazz sneaking in to see him, mind you, because I think Optimus was afraid to … inflict himself on those broken bonds. I trust Alpha Trion to have smoothed it all out, but, still Jazz had lost one of his partners, when the very work they all did was chewing up members of their cohort and spitting them into the recycle bins.::

Ratchet transmitted a glyph of gratitude for the explanation, intermingled with sadness that such vital bonds had been taken from Optimus. Regardless of the larger outcomes, so long as Jazz had not been compromised during his time in deep cover, Ratchet's spark spun with the rightness of what was about to happen as he took his place at the side of Prime's berth. Optimus and Jazz were exchanging quiet assurances and hesitantly-intimate touches, Jazz's ports already open and willing for Ratchet to connect and monitor.

"I'm connecting now," Ratchet said in a hushed tone out of respect for what was taking place. Jazz flashed him a brief acknowledgment, never taking attention off of the large mech who held him. As Ratchet's systems synced with the swift-moving processor, he could feel the immense struggle as Jazz lowered his firewalls. The mech had spent so much time in a hostile environment, but the call of Prime's spark was too strong for him to do anything that would delay what his own spark yearned so desperately for.

Ironhide shifted to connect to Optimus, able to do this completely without visual guides, a good thing considering he could not take his optics off the very deep hope imprinted on his Prime's fields and faceplates. He felt the rush of acceptance, the immediate opening of all that Optimus was, as well as the fact Ironhide was not the focus of his attention. All that was reserved for Jazz, whom Optimus saw as this shining beacon in the darkness that had come to envelop their world. There was no hesitation in their leader as he drew Jazz closer, his chestplates opening with little prelude beyond the caresses they had shared in getting settled on the berth. Ironhide was perfectly at ease with his role of grounding point, observer, and point of retreat should there be anything hostile that would, undoubtedly, destroy Jazz before it could affect the AllSpark-connected core of their Prime.

If Jazz had any awareness of the danger implicit in the spark before him, it was lost in a fog of need that had him shaking in the arms that supported him. He was not aware of Ratchet's steady frame settling into place to support him from behind. The horrors he had witnessed for vorns of deep cover among Megatron's forces all melted away in the face of the swirling energies coaxing him, calling him. It was a changed spark from the one he had refused to forget, but even without contact, he could feel its call upon him as one who knew him, needed him for completion.

He had no awareness of parting his own plates, or bringing his spark forward in his chest. He sank... or was pulled... into the massive gravity well that he had every desire and intention of utterly belonging to.

Every motion, every thought had been with deliberate intent, and yet the suddenness of the actual contact shook Optimus to his very inner self, breaking him away from thoughts of duty, of responsibility, and just making him exist within both himself and Jazz, echoes flickering into Ironhide and Ratchet via their connections.

He was Optimus, and he knew the plight of those who demanded change from the upper castes. He was Prime, who must now find a way to lead in such a way as to heal their world from the strife it was gripped in. He was a mech dedicated, above all else, to nurturing their race. He was an individual who could choose, who could love, and who was bound to meet a destiny that he knew no mech could be worthy of in the end.

All of that spiraled into his faith in this smaller mech, in the the steady need for the two mechs joined to them. They would keep him safe from himself, so that he could do what he needed to. Though the union was focused on Jazz, healing long ago tears in his psyche, he was aware of the cohort that Ironhide had made possible by breaking all the rules. He shared that directly with Jazz, opening Jazz to their new cohort-mates, even as his spark surged, subsuming the smaller, less potent one. Jazz was part of Optimus, part of Ironhide, part of Ratchet, and nothing in all the bad code he had managed to pick up in his mission could survive that onslaught of faith and love.

It was not the traditional web of a cohort being woven between them. All could sense it in their various ways. Prime's spark, infused with the massive power and mysterious sentience of the AllSpark, would always be the core around which the rest orbited, keeping him centered between them. Not a web of connection, but a galaxy, and their single greatest hope its star. It was right. This was how it should be. The AllSpark itself resonated its approval along the quantum and sub-quantum pathways by which it connected to every spark, but especially to the Prime's. Their cohort would be a refuge and haven to return to, and a beacon of hope when all seemed lost. Bonded, they were far stronger than they could ever be alone.

With each new pathway, the cohort learned. Jazz restored to Optimus those early memories from before the reformat which had been so hazy, showing the other two more of who their Prime had been. Optimus learned the horrors of the build-up to this war directly, bolstering his feeling that there was a darker taint than just his brother going mad. Ironhide was reminded of how many forms courage could take, while Ratchet, the youngest of them, felt something unlock within his own spark connecting him to a history a part of him had shared with them all. He no longer felt so young.

With Optimus, and the AllSpark, having unlocked the full potential of what the bonds were meant to be, he started to fade back some, brimming with the energy of the contact with Jazz's spark. Jazz, however, would not let go, and his fields expanded, ghosting over sensor relays in both the linked partners before he drove every single bit of the love he'd kept for Orion Pax, transferred to Optimus Prime, deep into his bond-mates' sparks. It was how he had survived, how he had kept his sense of self, and he knew that this war would make them both vulnerable unless they could share in something that powerful.

Optimus could not withstand such an onslaught of love. His massive spark spun into overload, a vortex of joy that pulled the other three with him, regardless of Ironhide and Ratchet's abandoned intentions to merely monitor. Everything was stripped away save who each of them were at essence: Nurturer, Guardian, Healer, and Trickster - all swept up together in an outpouring of love that swept them away into hope, peace and bliss.

* * *

 _Present_

Ironhide slowly came back to awareness with the knowledge that at some point, sparks had taken over that particular share, and that his own was still wrapped in the tendrils of Ratchet's corona. He felt a surge of frustration from his guardian protocols, at how easy it was for them to lose themselves, to become so vulnerable to forces he might not have been aware of in the midst of the merge.

That was until he became aware of a third presence in the bay, keeping watch, drawn by the spike in their energies.

Or perhaps Jazz was simply being hedonistic and watching a good show.

"Think of the glitch and he appears," Ratchet said with a brief bout of static in his vocalizer, even before he onlined his optics. He felt completely, utterly renewed and depleted all in one. It was disconcerting for the medic, who knew that physically, such a state was impossible. However, that block of memories never failed to make him relive that tidal wave of emotions and experience in full.

"Ain't like the two of ya keep a lid on it once ya start," Jazz said moving closer and with no hesitation, joining in their tangle of limbs and energies on the floor. "Ah'm pretty sure even Mikki felt that one."

Ratchet chuckled a little. "Almost jarring, to hear you speak..." He thought fondly of their human cohort-member, but mostly he reveled in the post-overload buzz in his circuits.

Ironhide tilted his head, then snorted. "That's what was different in the memories. Dialect matched us. But here, you deliberately sound different than the rest of us."

"There was once as many dialects back home as classes an' cities," Jazz explained, his clawed hands reaching out to caress the chests of his cohort-mates. "Long before the war, Council thought takin' that away would ease some of the strife an' friction. But it just meant we lost a whole lot o' beauty. Ah love the variety on this world. Talkin' different than the dominant patterns is just a way t' show that."

Ratchet nodded. "Yes, but when we just came up out of me meeting you for the first time, it is jarringly noticeable."

Jazz winked his visor and deliberately switched to a perfectly aristocratic accent. "More jarringly noticeable than the fact that neither of you kept your chest plates closed that first time when you were supposed to be monitoring to make sure I would not attack the Prime?"

"Slag-it!" Ironhide cursed, realizing that it had indeed been the case.

"It's okay," Jazz said, patting the guardian endearingly. "Neither of ya can keep yours zipped up once Prime unzips his."

Ratchet growled at the very earthy expression rolling off Jazz's vocalizer, before sighing and pulling together his chest-plates. "I do have duties that need attending for the next few days," he said ruefully, but Jazz knew better. Not a one of them really cared to revisit the memories that came next in the progression of their evolution as a cohort. And Jazz couldn't blame Ratchet for wanting to take a little time before tackling it.

"Guess ya just have t' help me work on the kinks in my style, my mech," Jazz told Ironhide, choosing to keep the warrior diverted while Ratchet found his strength to tackle the next part of needed memory.

"I'll enjoy putting you on your aft," Ironhide boasted, knowing Ratchet was uneasy, but letting it slide... for now.


	8. Incarcerous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Optimus Prime enters into negotiations to end the war. Not unexpectedly, things do not go as hoped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY BIRTHDAY MMOUSE15! Thank you again for being the reason this story is happening. An "outtake" is being written in your honor, but will be posted a bit after your birthday.
> 
>  **Content:** Discussion of dubiously consensual cohort bonding, minor violence, non explicit PnP interfacing, allusion to possible canon character death.

_Incarcerous: Conjures up ropes, which then bind an opponent._

A very junior mech, new to the position of communication coordinator, came running down the hall, looking frazzled and sparking with anticipation. Sunstreaker immediately shifted to bar the way, Sideswipe remaining closer to the door where Prime was in the midst of assimilating eons of data from previous Primes and Protectors. Granted, the vast majority of the rulers before him were discarded, hailing from peaceful reigns, but it was still a lengthy process, even with Prime's vastly upgraded processors.

"Sunstreaker, I'm sorry; I know he said only for emergencies, but Prime must be told!" Blaster rattled out. "We've got incoming communications from the Decepticon High Command on the older encrypted bands! They want to discuss negotiation!"

Sunstreaker's optics narrowed at that thought, seeing so many ways this could go awry. However, he knew his Prime well enough to know this was worth breaking in on the meditative process.

"Wait here," he told Blaster, going inside as Sideswipe remained on guard. This was outside of Ironhide's expertise, and they still had not found a good operations officer to funnel these matters through. Jazz had refused operations, instead sitting down to hammer out a true intelligence sector with Mirage, Megatron's former spy. Sunstreaker's distrust for that mech was mitigated somewhat by the fact Jazz was now the superior officer, and directly bound to Prime himself.

If the Decepticons were honestly seeking negotiation, this could be the break they all needed. However, Sunstreaker's instincts said otherwise.

* * *

  
 _Present_

"You asked about Prowl," Sideswipe said, feeling Ironhide pull away. The silver mech's optics were that curious mesh of blues that was one of the few warnings that both twins' personalities were sharing processor space.

"I keep... hearing echoes, like there's a hole in my cohort," Ironhide said. "And Ratchet's been busy."

"He's dodging you. From what you shared with me, this has got to be the next major memory dump," Sideswipe told him. "Now settle your aft back over here."

Ironhide bit at his sparring partner and teacher/student, but let himself settle close, no longer resisting the flow of data along their connected cords.

* * *

Prime considered his options, a full council of Jazz, Ironhide, Ratchet, Blaster, and the twins present while he tried to decide how to respond to the request for negotiation in a neutral location with himself and two lieutenants present. Mirage was not present, a lack that Prime felt severely, as his insight into Megatron would have been useful.

"There is not a Pit of a chance that this isn't a trap, Optimus," Ironhide reiterated the objection he had already given in private.

"We know," Sunstreaker growled. "Doesn't change what Prime said earlier. We have to meet this attempt, in case there is a thread of truth. You know, as well as we do, that Megatron only respects strength. We fail to meet this challenge, and he'll take it as an excuse to unleash the war on a bigger scale." The bronze twin did not like the idea at all, but he felt obligated to act as Prime's voice while Optimus allowed his council to debate it.

"Megatron has every advantage right now," Blaster said in a thoughtful tone. "Superior numbers, resources, and popular opinion is that things will settle down if he is simply allowed to rule with Prime in an advisory capacity. They want reconciliation between their leaders. I don't like this at all, but if we fail to answer an offer for negotiations that is known to the public at large, we may not recover from the fallout."

Ratchet had to admit that for as rambunctious and noisy as the communications specialist could be, Blaster did seem to have a good handle on the skittishly changing public sentiments.

"I will go," Optimus told them all, firmly, locking down the crowded memories that showed him too many possible outcomes. He leaned into the cohort, with Jazz assisting him in centering. "As I am allowed two guards, I wish one of the twins to accompany me, leaving the other with a secondary party that will wait outside the proscribed area around the negotiations." He looked at the pair, waiting while they decided that between them, then nodded when Sunstreaker tapped his own chest. "That leaves one position open with me, and a small strike force to wait with the other twin."

"I'm the second," Ironhide said in a voice that allowed none to challenge, not that any would question his right to be at his Prime's side. "I'm the only one equipped with weaponry that stands a chance at slowing Megatron down when he proves that this is a charade."

"I will be with Sideswipe," Ratchet stated firmly.

"You haven't been cleared for the field yet," Ironhide growled.

"And I am not remaining on base when my cohort is at risk. I'm more capable of defending myself than any medic we have, regardless of where I am in my training," Ratchet responded without any hint of backing down.

"Ratchet goes. We cannot risk other medics, who do not have the shielding, and I am satisfied he has learned adequately under your training," Prime told Ironhide. "Blaster and Jazz, both of you will remain here with the main army. Be prepared for an attack elsewhere, or even here, if this is a ruse, and do not hesitate to meet it. You should find that Grimlock is an adequate officer for leading a detachment, if necessary." Optimus looked at Ironhide next. "Choose five fighters to accompany Sideswipe's detachment. Their sole role will be in providing us an escape path, should it prove necessary."

With Mirage already invisibly scouting the proposed location for potential subterfuge, hopefully that would be enough of a precaution without triggering retaliatory action from Megatron. Optimus could only hope so as his command circle signaled their acknowledgment of his orders.

"Blaster, open a channel to Megatron's headquarters on the frequency we were given" Optimus ordered. The communications specialist did so, and soon a heavily armored white mech with black, red and yellow accents and amber optics was regarding Optimus dispassionately through the monitor. His sensor wings were held stiff in military formality, as was the red sensor chevron on his helm.

"Commander Prowl," Optimus said with a nod to the instantly recognizable military tactician who had already cost them so much.

"Optimus Prime," the Decepticon responded emotionlessly. "I trust you have had an opportunity to review our proposal."

"I have. I am communicating now with my intention to meet with Lord High Protector Megatron, as stipulated." Optimus Prime allowed his spark to have the hope his advisers would not. After all, they needed to end this before more mecha were extinguished. "Is he available?"

"He is presently indisposed. But I will relay your acceptance of the terms for negotiation. We will meet with you two orns from now at the designated time and place, and a cease fire shall be in effect until the negotiations are concluded." Nothing about Prowl's posture changed or gave any hint as to his feelings about the Lord High Protector's absence or the coming negotiations. But Prime could not help but to feel that the tactician was relieved that they had accepted. "Is there anything else you wish for me relay to Lord Megatron?"

"You may tell him that I still have hope for a future that is more equitable to everyone, Commander Prowl," Optimus told the strategist. "Optimus Prime out." He glanced at Blaster, who ended the transmission, leaving the small council of Autobots to consider the steps they were taking.

"Why do I have the feeling Sentinel's going to be slagged off over this when he gets back from his own negotiations offworld?" Sideswipe asked, just to fill the silence with some kind of sound. His Prime favored him with a glance, more thoughtful than anything.

"He is no longer the regnant Prime," Optimus said slowly. "For better or worse, Cybertron's people are in my hands for their care."

"And the Council he supposedly heads are so busy hiding their own afts, there is no one around to question those choices," Ironhide commented with his usual disdain for politicians.

Ratchet just looked thoughtful, considering what supplies he should take on his first mission in the field, a mission that might very well be his last, if the negotiations were real.

* * *

Ironhide had his scanners extended to their maximum range as they approached the appointed location, his weapons on standby but ready to activate in an instant. Mirage had scouted the area thoroughly, not detecting any activity that would indicate the setting of a trap. Megatron and his appointed lieutenants had been spotted approaching from the southwest.

Ironhide didn't trust it for a klik. The only question was what kind of trap Megatron had set?

As his scans mapped every possible point of ambush, a small portion of Ironhide's processors considered what had led him to be at the side of his Prime in a war that should never have been, hoping for some insight that would give him a clue as to what kind of betrayal Megatron would attempt. He was not built for strategizing and making predictions beyond the next moves in combat. Having to process in predictive fashion put a great strain on him, though he could do no less for his Prime who lacked the breadth of military commanders Megatron had at his disposal. The fact that they were meeting, essentially, to negotiate a surrender was proof of just how dismally he had failed in that task.

Ironhide could not say he had originally faulted Megatron in his desire that their race be more aggressive in pursuing and protecting their own interests within the galaxy. It did little good to pursue a pacifist and isolationist policy when so many other space-faring species did not, and their world needed to claim resources for itself.

He had sympathized with Megatron's desire for a more equitable society, in which hard work and courage earned a mech the right to fuel, not social station and class. But it had quickly become clear that Megatron's words of equality were the dressing over something much more brutal. Megatron believed that Cybertron was weak, that the forge of war would burn away the excess, the wasted and unworthy portions of their population, to leave him with something worthy to rule.

No matter how compelling Megatron's case had been, Ironhide's coding, both as warrior and guardian, would not allow him to think upon Cybetronians who were physically weaker than him as expendable. Frustrating and exasperating, yes, but never expendable. No matter how gruff his words, he knew he had been built strong to protect, so that others could devote their energy and skills to other needs.

When the time had come, he had made his choice to stand with Prime, and had discovered that his one-time charge was suffering deeply because the Lord High Protector had never completed their bond. Ironhide had come to the conclusion that Megatron's coding had become skewed without the bond with Prime to balance him, and had done all he could, renewing and strengthening his own latent guardian bond with Optimus, to provide the balance his Prime was lacking due to that rejection.

He had made his choice. Any warrior with proper coding should have made the same one. He had been disgusted that so few others had done so.

As they approached the temple ruins, a single mech stepped out from them, one of those whom Ironhide knew should have been capable of making the correct choice, but who had not come to Prime's side when Ironhide had led his minor defection.

Ironhide could not help the low growl that escaped him, looking at the military strategist.

"Easy, Ironhide," Optimus said.

"Why is he alone?" Sunstreaker asked suspiciously as the sensor-winged mech approached them with his personal shields clearly down and no sign of activated weapons.

"Because my Lord High Protector is in the process of securing a peaceful end to this illogical course of events." Prowl's sensors were nearly as sharp as a Seeker's, benefit to being of the prized Praxian frame class. "Lord Megatron tenders his regrets over the delay, Prime, but certain elements of the military required his attention, personally, in order to be certain that today's proceedings have the desired outcome."

Optimus Prime inclined his head slightly, thoughtful but betraying no outward suspicion. "We shall wait."

"He did empower me to begin the discussion of terms," Prowl suggested. "If you will follow me to the conference table I have set up?" He was very keen on details, ritual, rite, and process. The manner in which the war had been handled thus far had been difficult to tolerate at times, but Megatron's vision for Cybertron was brilliantly pragmatic. What Prowl knew, anyway, of that vision. He was not as intimate a coordinator in the efforts as Soundwave, but all that had been explained about necessary sacrifices and resource limitations computed correctly for the strategist.

"Sunstreaker, go and scan for devices and traps," Ironhide ordered, standing firm and unmoving, and not about to allow Optimus to enter the ruins without thorough recon. ::And alert Sideswipe about this development. I foresee an attack,:: he added over comms.

::Already done. They don't have anything on long-range scanners,:: Sunstreaker replied, already jogging ahead of Prowl to toward the ruined temple. ::I dislike this, Ironhide. We should get Prime out of here.::

::I agree,:: Ironhide responded, turning his attention to Optimus and ignoring the single Decepticon, whom he was tempted to simply eliminate, pain in the cables that he was. "Optimus, I suggest we retreat until Megatron sees it fit to uphold his end of the terms for this negotiation. His presence was not optional, and the absence is highly suspicions."

"Ironhide, I must extend the benefit of the doubt in this circumstance. You yourself have commented that various elements within the military were more than eager for an excuse to fight, and now that is being removed, if these negotiations are successful," Optimus cautioned. The large mech was on guard, sensors turned out, his instincts full of warnings that his was trickery, and yet he had a duty to follow it through, just in case.

"While I understand your wariness, Commander Ironhide, it would be quite illogical to waste any further resources now that Megatron has shown how dedicated he is to making the future of the planet a stronger, more viable one," Prowl pointed out.

"Megatron ordered the destruction of an entire city of scientists and civilians, without the benefit of surrender. That is hardly a mech dedicated to the future of our planet," Ironhide growled. "Or do you deny what took place at Science City?"

Prowl's sensor panels flicked minutely. "There was a misunderstanding of orders, possibly due to treachery from the very elements that Megatron has gone to bring back in line now," the tactician said coolly, but his fields prickled slightly in acknowledgement of the wrongness in that attack.

"Mistakes can and will happen," Optimus Prime conceded. "But I need to know if Megatron is committed to ensuring an end to the violence as part of the conditions of this surrender?"

Prowl had opened his mouth to speak just as Sunstreaker commed both Ironhide and Optimus Prime. ::DOWN!::

Optimus reacted without a thought to the danger he was in, tackling Prowl to the ground as Sunstreaker relayed the flash of Sideswipe having spotted Seekers dropping from orbit at hypersonic speeds in an attack pattern.

Ironhide's weapons were immediately online, firing off a round of long-range missiles as he positioned himself to cover Prime from the incoming assault. "Shield frequencies!" he roared at Prowl over the blasts. "Anything that will help us bring them down!"

Prowl was momentarily at a loss, his processor not capable of understanding that they were under attack when Megatron had promised that this meeting was in their best interests. His Lord had said explicitly that making certain Prime came would mean an ending to the war.

"Ironhide, move!" Optimus commanded in a fiercer tone than usual, cycling through the memories, bringing up the tactics long ago developed to handle rogue Seekers. Unwillingly, but realizing that Prowl was not being helpful, Ironhide let the larger mech get his own weapons into the fight.

There was only a trine, and their very speed worked against them when that first pass failed to take down the targets. While all three mechs had ricochet damage, the initial blasts had failed completely due to Sideswipe's instinctive reaction to the streaking sights he had only barely identified before throwing a warning to his brother.

Sunstreaker did not rejoin them, taking a covered position in the ruins to bring up both his own missile launcher and his long-range laser rifle. He was a deadly shot, working with either one, yet held back, tracking the three fliers. He wanted their course and speed, locking in both vectors as he computed his first shot for the central tri-wing fighter.

"They've switched to the multi-phase shielding, and will be overlapping their defenses, making it necessary to use tight beams and precision," Prowl managed to say, as all the factors fell into place with spark-sickening certainty. He had been used, a decoy, and proven to be as expendable as the Science City troops. "Heavy artillery will weaken the shielding though. And they will not stay to finish a fight if they are damaged severely enough. Severity ranges differ from trine to trine, however."

Optimus listened, even as he and Ironhide both sighted in on the looping Seekers, knowing they were coming back for the kill, intent on finishing them off. He whispered for forgiveness from the AllSpark as he used Prowl's information and fired, almost simultaneously with Sunstreaker's narrow beam blast at the central Seeker. Ironhide's heavy fire on wide dispersal followed an instant later.

"Rendezvous with our team, now, Autobots!" Optimus commanded, flipping from mech to hauler in time to avoid the return fire aimed his way. "Prowl, you will accompany us!"

Whether this would be as a prisoner or a refugee could be decided later, as logic dictated. Prowl acceded to the Prime's command, following the big hauler with its heavy anti-aircraft guns firing for cover at their pursuit. Ironhide and Sunstreaker kept to mech form for several more shots, running behind their leader until they had managed to break the trine formation enough to allow them both a chance for transformation without getting shot back.

From there, it was merely a matter of running and firing, dodging as needed, to make the short distance separating them from Sideswipe's handpicked team. Ratchet had full scans on the incoming mechs before they were fully in the safety of the ring of warriors, pleased to see mostly cosmetic damage, though Prowl had taken a deep strike along what would be his left sensor panel when he transformed again.

Faced with superior firepower and numbers, the trine had no choice to break off and admit defeat. Still, it was a very wary Prime who ordered the retreat to headquarters, anticipating another strike along the way. Only a small part of his spark whispered that it would not come, for Megatron did not take him seriously as a threat.

Megatron was going to learn differently.

* * *

"What I don't understand is why he only sent one trine, if he meant to take you out," Blaster commented in the lull following Optimus Prime's report on his interview with their high ranking Decepticon "guest".

"Plausible deniability," Jazz replied. "Megatron already had established that he'd left to bring a rogue group of Seekers who opposed the negotiation process under control. The populace wants a Prime and a Lord High Protector co-ruling Cybertron, and would not take it kindly to Megatron intentionally taking out Optimus. But an apparently rogue trine, ordered to do so, could then be publicly executed for their treason by a righteous High Protector."

"That concurs with Prowl's analysis of the situation," Optimus stated. He was certain there was more to it, however. He could only hope that Megatron's underestimation of him would prove to be his undoing.

"And you trust anything that slagger has to say on the matter?" Ironhide snapped,

"I do not believe Prowl knew he was a decoy," Optimus explained gravely. "He believed that he was doing exactly as he had advised Megatron - negotiating a surrender that would end hostilities and retain me in an advisory position to the Lord High Protector, but without the Council's interference."

"And you would have agreed to that?" Ratchet asked.

"Only if Megatron had agreed to complete our bond, so I truly could have influenced him. For the good of Cybertron, yes, I would have agreed. The violence needs to end."

Ratchet could feel the loss of that last hope along the cohort bond, replaced with a steely determination to be the warrior and commander who would defeat a Lord High Protector who had truly gone mad.

"I still say he's too great a risk to have around; recycle him," Sunstreaker said in a sullen voice. He'd caught more of that cosmetic damage than anyone else, making certain to be a flashy target. That didn't mean he liked it.

"A reformat is a potential answer, if he voluntarily accepted it," Blaster pointed out, but he didn't have to be a member of that tight-knit cohort to know how uneasy that made Prime.

"At this point, no decision he can make is a truly free one, as he is aware his life is forfeit if he goes back to the Decepticons. Likewise, he knows he cannot be trusted among us." Optimus hesitated, then plunged on. "Science City is one more thing that plagues him. He admitted to me that he was concerned in the aftermath, but Megatron insisted his orders were misunderstood. Apparently, until this point, Prowl believed him. As Prowl has believed in him all along."

"He had the same evidence as I did, from the beginning, and made his choice," Ironhide responded coldly. "I have no sympathy for him. If he'd been slagged by the Seekers, it is better than he deserved."

Prime locked optics with his guardian. ::I do not believe he did. After interviewing him extensively, I believe Megatron learned from his mistake with you, and kept his phrasing within the terms Prowl could accept and understand.:: Shifting to the more private communication was the only way Prime could spare Ironhide in front of the others. ::And now, with far more deaths on his hands, he is finally seeing that he was betrayed by a mech he trusted as deeply as you once did.::

Ironhide rumbled deeply, but did not respond, looking down at the table.

"Bond with him," Jazz suddenly threw out, only to have nearly every mech but Prime at the table explode in a barrage of verbal protests.

"Now just wait a klik," he said, holding up his hand to stop the others. "We need a strategist. We all know it. Ironhide's done a slagging good job with the coding and expertise he has, but none of us were made for that kind of tactical processing. I don't want him a part of my cohort any more than the rest of you, but cohorts were never just about love and friendship. They were about uniting in a common task. It is one way we could know without a doubt that he'd be trustworthy, and could gain us a powerful advantage."

"I cannot conscience such an abrogation of his rights," Optimus said. "Forcing him to a bond he cannot betray is just as heinous a crime as using his brilliance under false pretenses."

"Doesn't mean you can't put the offer on the table," Sideswipe said, earning a glare from his brother. "Look, I don't like it either!" he snapped at Sunstreaker. "But either he's tied to us, or... someone has to deactivate him for our own good, and as a mercy to him. We don't have a secure facility for maintaining high ranking prisoners, not even if we slapped him in stasis."

"The mech is smart enough to know that we have no way of trusting him short of a reformat," Jazz continued, his optic band gleaming. "If he wants that trust, he'll agree to this. He may prefer reformat or deactivation, knowing what he is coming to terms with right now. You'd be offering him a way to come to terms with it, Optimus, a way for him to trust himself."

Optimus considered that in silence, weighing all sides of it. No matter what, Prowl would be losing. No matter what, Optimus was in the position of being his executioner or captor. None of the options set well with his conscience.

The choice could only, ultimately, be his own, as the center of a cohort that was not the common type. He knew he had become a hub to the rest, and the AllSpark had shown him this was only the beginning of safety for the ones who did survive the horrors yet to be unleashed.

"Bring him to me, and then I wish to be left alone with him. He has been disarmed and thoroughly scanned, Sunstreaker, so you and your brother will wait outside while I interview him one more time."

Ratchet and Ironhide exchanged a long look. Neither felt at all enthusiastic about this turn of events. Ironhide, in particular, worried about the impact this decision would have on Prime's own psyche in the midst of integrating the coding and memories of warriors from the past.

It was a very quiet group that left the table to do Prime's bidding.

* * *

Having explained to Prowl the suggestion that had come out of his command council, and his own deep reservations regarding said proposal, Optimus allowed silence to settle between himself and Megatron's former strategist.

That his brother could so easily dispose of one who had served him so faithfully only confirmed what Prime was beginning to understand: Megatron was lost to him, and his ruthlessness would destroy their world if Prime did not stand up to him with far more resolve and force than he had thus far shown.

"It is an unexpected tactic that has now opened the field considerably," Prowl told Prime with a firm voice, having processed and analyzed the offers and all angles. His amber optics looked at the Prime, frame stiff with duty and emotions he would never show to anyone. "While I was convinced that I would, at the very least, be used in a prisoner exchange eventually, and thus lead to my offlining, I admit that I am not partial to any of the options which lead to my destruction. I have that much self-preservation in my own processors."

"Yet, I cannot see how you would choose what is being offered as the compromise, if you were not against a wall of unpalatable choices," Optimus Prime told him. "I do not like using this as a forceful option. The AllSpark is quite clear that the connections between us are meant to prevent isolation from corrupting our processors. It is the main reason that despite Mirage coming to me before Megatron openly declared against us, my cohort refuses to trust him." Mirage was unbonded, had never been a member of a cohort, and found no desire for one. Prime was of the opinion, after casual interfacing, that Mirage's Spark was so unique that it had not yet met the right match.

"You fail to take into consideration a factor from my side of events, Optimus Prime." Prowl's optics glinted with something dangerous, something ruthless, and it served to remind Optimus that this officer was made of sterner stuff than anyone in his army save possibly Ironhide.

"And that is?"

"Megatron lied to me all along. Megatron used me to lure you, the rightful civilian ruler, into a deadly trap. Megatron has probably hidden the exact outcomes of my strategies from me this whole time. That makes me desire a chance to redress my failure to see his duplicity. It makes me wish for a chance to pit my superior tactics against him, and see him removed from the powerbase I helped give him. I want the dream he sold me, not the massacre he actually must be set upon."

As Prowl spoke, his passion grew more evident, and Optimus realized that his own pointed words to Ironhide could just as easily apply to himself. Prowl had believed in Megatron with the same fervor as Optimus had tried to love his Lord High Protector, and both had been nearly destroyed by the mech's callous disregard for them.

"You see your offer as being forced upon me, for what mech would choose destruction?" Prowl placed his hand over his spark. "I say that I wish this, as an alliance to see our people restored to a better path. I tell you that is means I will be able to affect you, to ensure that you will not make our people eternal slaves, either."

The leader of the Autobots rose and came closer to the tactician, gripping Prowl's shoulders in both his hands, knuckles light sliding along the sensor panels in reassurance. "Prowl, I swear upon all that I am, I only want to free Cybertron from this war, and then redress the issues that made war feasible. Freedom is the right of all sentient beings."

"So it is. With a responsibility to not abuse that freedom at the cost of others, I see now." Prowl looked up at the Prime, lines set in firm resolution. "Give me the keys to my freedom, by making me part of your cohort. You will never have reason to regret it."

* * *

 _Present_

As he returned to present functioning, Ironhide knew they had been joined by Jazz. The second silver mech had provided the final memory, one that Sideswipe would not likely have had in his core. "His absence... the broken bond, I can feel it, have felt it since I came back online," Ironhide said quietly

"None of us would likely be here now if he hadn't taken Prime's offer," Jazz offered along with a complex stream of emotions along the bond. Ironhide was left with the impression of a cohort-mate who was trusted, even loved, but not always liked.

"Who the Pits knows where the slagger even is," Sideswipe grumbled. "Vanished during the search for the AllSpark," he answered as Ironhide looked at him.

"Pretty sure he deactivated," Jazz said with regret. "All we know is he was exploring an energy signature that might have been the Cube... and then we all felt the bond snap. When we investigated, though, there was no debris, and no energy signature at all."

They were all silent for a moment. Ironhide examined the strange empty places in his spark. There were others, besides Prowl, but they were far more ancient losses. Mecha whom not even his cohort could help him recall. The designations and memories likely existed somewhere in the externals Ratchet had preserved, though even those might have been corrupted in time. Even if he had not lost so much to Sentinel's ruthlessness, Ironhide may not have been able to access the memories after so long. Yet he could still feel their loss. It reminded him just how old his spark was, despite the memories he was only beginning to regain.

The empty spaces ached, but it was the present he was concerned with. The guardian shifted uncomfortably, questions circulating through is processors. With each memory share, his awareness of just how important the twins were to Prime grew, and the questions became more troubling to him.

"Just ask it," Sideswipe growled, field surging with annoyance with Ironhide's continued silence.

Ironhide regarded the functioning twin steadily, and cycled his vents. "I do not understand why you... why both you and your twin are not a part of Prime's cohort," he said, still uncertain whether to use the present or past tense when it came to bronze twin.

Sideswipe snorted. "Sunstreaker and I were bonded from creation in a way that made bonding to others difficult. Unlike Mudflap and Skids, we came out of one, normal-sized spark that fractured. The echo effect for others was... distracting and uncomfortable. It's not that way now." Sideswipe held a hand over his spark, optics dimming.

Ironhide signaled his understanding and thanks for the explanation, though many questions remained. He could understand why the twins had not been part of the cohort before the battle that had robbed Sunstreaker of his frame, but he couldn't help but to wonder whether such isolation was harming Sideswipe now. That, however, was a question better asked of Optimus.


	9. Geminio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While communing with the AllSpark, Optimus Prime is given guidance for the future that will change everything, starting with his cohort.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Content Advisory:** Creation of new, fully formed adult mechs by means of the AllSpark and donation of code and materials from creating cohorts into growth tanks. Non-explicit intimacy including human/mech.
> 
> * * *
> 
> This is the final, full chapter of Fidelius (only the epilogue to go), but not the end of this story-verse! It continues with the Decepticon side of the story in [To Build a Future](http://archiveofourown.org/series/9254), by Merfilly, which Femme highly recommends, and the new Autobot arc of that series, [Future in the Making](archiveofourown.org/series/13795) which we are coauthoring. Thank you for all of the support and feedback. You are wonderful readers, and we hope you continue to enjoy our collaborations and solo efforts.

_Geminio - Creates a duplicate of an item (a twin, as in the zodiacal sign Gemini)_

In view of how poorly Ironhide had taken the idea of Prowl's loss, Ratchet hesitated about the memories of Chromia and Elita One. He decided that the historical record would serve best there, as well as whatever Ironhide gleaned from Arcee. There was just too much pain bound up in those memories to tackle them. It wasn't as if the femmes had actually lived in close contact with them, and Ratchet couldn't give true justice to whatever had been between Chromia and Ironhide to begin with. The entire cohort, based on unifying and protecting Prime from isolation and the pull of memories that were not his own, had been troubled when dealing with the more exclusive bonds Prime and Ironhide had forged to Elita One and Chromia, outside the cohort.

In retrospect, it had been a good lesson to learn. Cohorts that had forged out of lost members from broken ones had found ways to anchor members that did not want a full cohort, or small ones had found themselves joined through one or two members each, when some parts of one cohort had been incompatible with the full range of the other's members.

However, Ratchet wanted to set a better mood for Ironhide, and with the commentary in medical that very cycle between himself and Mikaela on how to save the Autobots from extinction, it seemed fitting to bring up the final member of their complete cohort, the one Ironhide had most in common with and had seen the least since his reformat: Bumblebee.

With those memories firmly in place, the medic shut everything down to minimal power use in his bay, and went seeking his lover for some uninterrupted quality time.

* * *

With Prowl as their military tactician, and the addition of an engineering cohort known as the Wreckers (survivors of Science City), things went better for Prime and his forces. That was, if better meant a slow down in the sheer number of civilian losses and whole-scale destruction of cities and settlements that did not give their support to the Lord High Protector. Losses among the Autobots remained unacceptably high from Ratchet's point of view, no matter how much Prowl assured them that such losses were within an acceptable range.

Legend grew that if there was a flicker of a spark left, Ratchet would bring a mech back. It was a legend largely based on fact and first hand accounts.

Very few outside his own cohort, and then usually only Ironhide, were there to see the aftermath when Ratchet failed and there was no one to tell the tale.

Things improved again after the alliance with the dangerous and insular femmes, and yet again when Ultra Magnus and his cohort threw their lot in with Prime upon their return from the doomed mission in a sabotaged ship Megatron had sent them on to avoid their interference with his coup.

Finally, they were making some gains rather than cutting their losses, though Ratchet feared that Megatron was simply taking time to regroup and build up to something far worse. These fears were realized when Mirage returned from a mission to Decepticon HQ with news of Shockwave's latest experiments on forced spark budding and splintering to inflate the size of their army. Shortly after, the Decepticons briefly captured the AllSpark itself, inducing the artifact to produce a massive number of highly volatile sparks to power frontline berserkers and cannon fodder.

In the campaign to regain the AllSpark, they nearly lost Prime, and did lose Sunstreaker, or at least his frame and independent self. To say that Ratchet and his cohort took that loss hard was an understatement. Though the twins had never been a part of their cohort due to the unique nature of their sparks, the loss felt like a cohort loss, and Ratchet put himself in stasis attempting to figure out a way to put Sunstreaker's spark back in the frame he rebuilt.

When they recovered the AllSpark (with aid from the artifact itself), they found that its energies had been changed and damaged from its time in the Megatron's hands, forced to give sparks to mechs built only to obey orders and extinguish. Prime spent many orns in meditative connection with the Cube, attempting to restore it to balance.

After one particularly long meditation, he called his cohort together in the privacy of his quarters.

"We must send the AllSpark into hiding and ensure that under no circumstance Megatron captures it again. Only time will heal the damage to its energies, and it will not abide being used in such a manner again... even if it means being sent off planet or, as a last resort, having its physical form in this dimension destroyed."

"I get a feeling there's a 'but' to this statement," Jazz responded in the midst of the other's shocked exclamations.

"There is," Optimus said, his field flaring to calm the four mechs of his cohort. "The AllSpark desires to create again, in the way it was meant to, prior to taking its mobile form."

Ironhide frowned, and gave Optimus a considering look.” What does that mean? What's it need? What's different about it?"

Prowl was calculating probabilities, and his more limited knowledge of the AllSpark still told him his leader was correct. "If it is sent off planet, the Decepticons will initiate a full search for it, thus drawing some of the fighting away from Cybertron. Unfortunately, this will likely escalate the conflicts on other worlds, as it spreads to our colonies, our allies, and potentially new worlds."

"Prowl... pipe down, and let Prime tell us the other part of things before we even try to cope with the idea of the AllSpark leaving our care," Jazz said, a little more brusquely than he might on a normal day, but the concept had his spark aching already.

Prime's tone was low and patient, at peace with the conclusions he had come to while connected to the ancient artifact. "Long ago, from what I understand, the Cube simply budded sparks into a well of materials, with no predetermined coding or functions, or even supervision, often forming whole cohorts at once The sparks themselves fabricated the nanites that built the shell they would inhabit, or drew to themselves the nanites of recycled materials, incorporating their coding into the protoform. As part of restoring balance, any cohorts who are willing to do so will donate to fabrication tanks, and a spark will be placed in each with no predetermined coding other than what it finds within the nanite code each cohort donates."

"That is asking cohorts to assume quite a risk," Ratchet said cautiously. His own function had been carefully determined and tailored in his reformat, and the idea of a new mech with coding completely unsuited to the situation in which it was sparked made him inherently nervous.

"No, it's asking us to introduce an unknown factor into the formula of this war," Prowl said. "Such a tactic might lead to a break in the ceaseless aggression, as Megatron and his command staff have to learn new ways to cope with whatever the AllSpark's new creations add to our side." He began pondering the ramifications of such an event, and working out the threats and challenges inherent to making the most of a strategic jump.

"You assume that these random-builds will choose us over the 'Cons," Ironhide growled, not so sure of that.

Jazz looked thoughtful, but kept his peace for the moment.

"They will online as part of established or new cohorts," Optimus responded, addressing Ironhide first. "Though some cohorts did splinter in differing factions and loyalties, it was usually among those that were already fractured for other reasons." Optimus paused, regarding each member of his cohort in turn. "The AllSpark is asking us to take a leap of faith in an uncertain time, and create new lives as a sign of hope for the future."

They took the time to consider it, wondering if they had the faith needed for such a thing. When it had been digested, and considered fully, it was Ironhide who spoke first.

"Prime... if the AllSpark asks it, I will give whatever is needed." He was loyal to a fault to Optimus, but this came from his spark. They needed hope... Prime himself needed that hope re-instilled in his beliefs... as much as they needed the mechpower.

"I'll talk to Blaster, and we'll contact all the cohorts' focal points," Jazz said, agreeing to it as well.

"This must be done quickly," Prowl cautioned. "Blaster has sealed up most of our communications leaks, but word of our plans will undoubtedly get back to Megatron. He will know that the new sparks represent a vulnerability to us. It would be more tactically sound to limit this to the most trusted cohorts who are already in close proximity to the AllSpark."

Jazz thought on that. "Kup. Hound... quiet mechs!" The protest growing in the room was the danger inherent in allowing Mirage to be part of this, as Hound's latest cohort member. Hound was an excellent scout, a Protector of Cybertron's wilds who hated the Decepticons with fiery passion under his laid-back exterior, for the loss of those places.

"Elita's cohort must be offered this opportunity as well," Prime added. "But we have ways of ensuring our communication with the femmes is not intercepted. While I agree with the tactical soundness of limiting this to a few cohorts, I am not certain that will provide what the Cube seeks. It is the act of unlimited and non-coerced creation that will begin the process of restoring its balance."

"But surely the AllSpark does not wish its new creations to be at risk of capture or deactivation if we spread the word too widely and Megatron learns our plans?" Ratchet protested. "And consider that we are already crippled for resources. We could put some sparks in stasis to be framed later, according the process the AllSpark favors, if it is the act of creating sparks that will restore it."

"All good points," Prime agreed, musing further.

"If stasis is required, I propose a mobile unit be built for them, so we may better protect it," Ironhide added. "Because otherwise, we're just giving Megatron a chance to capture them if we have just one crucial defeat."

"Perhaps it would be best to select some one from among the non-combatants to take the stasis sparks away to a colony far from here?" Jazz suggested. "Blaster's cohort-mate Cosmos would certainly see the need for such travel."

"I believe this course of action will be acceptable to the energies within the Cube," Prime concluded after pondering the question. "There is a strong sense of its destiny, as well as our own, being away from Cybertron for a time, though much about that remains very unclear to me."

"I do not advise giving up on Cybertron until it is clear that we cannot regain it," Prowl cautioned.

"Of course not," Jazz told him, surprised at Prowl's near sentimental attachment to 'home', but then the tactician did have layers, too.

"I'll prepare the tanks," Ratchet said with finality, "and spread a rumor about a series of reformats to cover the activity." He looked toward Jazz, "perhaps you can arrange to have some of your agents go missing for a time to cover for that. Wheeljack's cohort should be brought in on this as well, since it would be best if he and Perceptor were involved in overseeing the fabrication."

Ironhide's growl at the two constructor-class mechs that cohort had grown to include was cut short by Prime. "Hoist and Grapple have proven themselves time and again. As has Mirage. We must trust one another, now more than ever, and set that example for these new mechs in our cohorts. The AllSpark is entrusting us with what may be the last new sparks it willingly gives until this war ends."

"So we must," Jazz agreed. He would talk to each of the focal mechs in the chosen cohorts, and make certain they understood the need involved. Kup would be his best ally in this; the old mech knew more than most of them ever would.

Optimus' energy changed at that statement, his field flaring with near possessive intensity toward the four other mechs in the room. "My friends, we are to be the source code and mentors of a new being. There are many ways Ratchet can collect that coding for the tank, some of which are quite pleasant. I propose that we celebrate."

* * *

The problem with a truly unmediated fabrication process was that one never knew what type of frame a spark would create around itself and what combination of coding would form the base. In the case of the six tanks secured deep within the Autobot base, a new, far larger tank had been built for the one whose frame already showed him destined for the stars. The transfer had been dangerous, but Ratchet was pleased with the results.

As unsure as he had been of this process, and even though he continued to worry about new mecha who might be unsuited to the Pit they were onlining to, overseeing the development taking place within those six tanks had softened something within the battle-forged medic.

It was hard not to feel some measure of awe and joy watching Wheeljack croon at the newest member of his own cohort from his side of the tank's monitors or Blaster and his symbionts chat amiably with a Transport Class shuttle who could not yet hear him. Ratchet could not help but to be drawn to the nearly fully developed mech he had contributed to. Each of his cohort mates had spent time near that tank, forging the cohort link, including the one who had just left after quietly contemplating the small mech within whose sensor wings were so similar to Prowl's own. Prowl had shown far more emotive attachment to the new creation than Ratchet had expected.

Ironhide came in, the most frequent visitor down here, and walked around each tank, inspecting the developing new mechs. He then came to stand behind Ratchet, a hand lightly on his partner's hip, head over his shoulder to peer at the diagnostics Ratchet was entering on a data pad. "Soon?" he asked hopefully, eager to meet them all, especially their own.

"They will not all be ready at once, and the process is not predictable, but yes, soon," Ratchet responded, his frame settling into Ironhide's even more closely and with uninhibited affection. "I predict Kup's will be first. He seems to be in a hurry about everything."

"Imagine that will make things interesting for Springer, Ultra Magnus, and Kup," Ironhide said with a laugh. "Not a one of them ever seem to be in a hurry." His optics turned toward their own tank, the one with the smallest of the frames. "Little Buzzer still coming along fine?" Ironhide was very affectionate toward the young one that held the combined coding of his cohort, and he communed often with the tank.

"His core coding is fully integrated and his protoform is nearly complete. With the high concentration and quality of sensors, I'd predict some sort of Scout class, but there will truly be no way of telling until he chooses his function," Ratchet said, then nuzzled into the slightly larger mech, "little buzzer's coming along just fine."

It would be fascinating, Ratchet thought, watching mechs emerge with no predetermined functions, giving them the chance to integrate whatever modules they felt drawn to by the inclinations of their own sparks. It felt so indulgent in a time of war when their needs were so clear.

"Good." Ironhide gave Ratchet a caress along sensitive sensor plates, then moved to actually touch the tank, both hands spreading on it as he peered in. He rested his helm on the barrier, radiating the love he felt toward this creation.

Ratchet could not help but to recall onlining to the warrior after his reformat, already familiar with him, likely because of the time Ironhide had spent with his own tank. Wheeljack had told him as much. Just observing his anchor show such deep affection for the newest member of their cohort was enough to convince him that Prime had been right. This was exactly what they needed to have hope to carry on.

The wave of emotion the medic felt toward Ironhide in that moment was nearly enough to bring him down from his pedes. Ironhide had forged a cohort with Optimus to begin with, and the many new or growing cohorts among the Autobots had him to thank for paving the way. Ratchet tended to be reserved in his public affections, but he moved behind the warrior and rested his own helm against his back struts, his hands on Ironhide's hip plating. He then opened the cohort bond to show the soft-sparked warrior exactly what he was thinking and feeling.

Ironhide accepted that, multiplied it, and gave it through to their creation as he maintained the link. ~We will protect them, let them know some kind of hope and love and freedom.~ He pressed into the contact from Ratchet. ~Ratchet, I'm going to hate having to put these memories on spools. Wish I never had to.~

~I'll remember for you, Ironhide,~ Ratchet promised, completely sincere and not a hint of the usual acerbic tone. ~But I'm working on a way to change that for you, as is Wheeljack. If any of these new mechs have predominant warrior coding, maybe we can make sure they don't have to make those choices.~

~Looking forward to a future I can dump all these battle tactics, and just hold the memories of you and ours in my own processor.~ Ironhide rarely let himself express his regrets that clearly, but the developing protoform made him a little more open.

~We'll have it,~ Ratchet responded fiercely, surprising himself with the depth of hope that being involved in the creation process had engendered in him. If he had to face Megatron himself, he would make sure of it.

* * *

The tanks slowly emptied, their creations welcomed into loving cohorts, until only Prime's cohort was without theirs. Wheeljack had nearly done acrobatics when Que onlined babbling in scientific notation, and Cosmos had just made it back in time to be there when Sky Lynx opened his optics surrounded by all of Blaster's symbionts. Hound and Trailbreaker had been present for Dino, lamenting that Mirage was on mission, because the mechling was so much like their lover.

Arcee's creators had, very surprisingly, decided that she should remain near the others as she integrated the modules for her chosen function, which meant Elita and Chromia themselves were on hand so the new femme would have members of her cohort close. Ratchet couldn't help but to suspect the two femmes had secondary motivations for remaining on the Autobot base for a time, and tried not to begrudge Ironhide for the distraction.

Hot Rod had picked his designation aptly, having indeed been the first and fastest, and was already causing his creators processor aches with his propensity for trouble.

Now, Ratchet had called the cohort together, as their creation was pulled free from the tank and dried by the air vents before being placed on the berth. Jazz skidded in moments before Ironhide, laughing, and making it obvious they had been racing. Optimus Prime arrived, squeezing Ratchet's shoulderplate in a gentle apology that he had not been there when Ratchet onlined, and yet was here today. Prowl followed quietly, his emotions held tight, but his cohort knew the subtle motions of his sensor wings well enough to see that his excitement was no less than their own.

The new mech had come fully online several times near the end of his time in the tank, sensors reaching out to everyone and everything around him. His chromonanites had begun populating his armor as soon as it was fully formed in a color nearly as bright as Ratchet's own, though of a different hue. A scout's colors were normally subdued, which made Ratchet suspicious that there was another core function at work, one which would cause the new mech to attempt to draw attention to himself and away from others.

Bright blue optics flickered to life, taking in those he had been regarding through the tank near the end, who were now all connected to his systems via cables spliced into Ratchet's main medical interface.

"Well, it's good to see you looking back at us, little buzzer," Ironhide chuckled as the new mech's highly developed sensors tickled his plating and curiosity wrote itself in every line of the mobile face.

"Hello... Bumblebee?" Optimus said, as the designation floated through all of them. The glyph was reminiscent of the small but dangerous flying insectoids that had once inhabited the wild crystal forests and had been domesticated to tend the gardens of the same.* "Welcome to our cohort."

"We've been anticipating you quite some time now," Prowl added, doorwings flexing upward in joy.

The bright yellow mech's vocalizer initialized with a brief burst of static before settling into a resonance that could only be described as cheery. "I've been looking forward to getting out of the tank and meeting all of you. May I please get up now?" he asked Ratchet with far more politeness than most new mechs, with their lack of social coding, normally displayed, though his impatience both to interact socially and explore his environment was keenly felt through the cables that connected him to his creating cohort.

Prowl's sensor wings continued to flick as they reacted to Bumblebee's thorough scans of those around him and the wider environment. Such scanning would have been considered rude in anyone but a medic or a brand new mech, in which case it was completely expected, though sometimes uncomfortable for those who had higher concentrations of receptors on their plating.

"Just one more scan through, bitling," Ratchet told him affectionately, making certain the pre and post onlining scans verified each other.

"He's a nannybot," Ironhide assured their creation. "Get used to it."

Jazz bit back his laugh when Ratchet, not missing a beat or disturbing the medical cable connection, swung and clanged Ironhide's arm solidly with his hand. He took in the configuration of their new member, seeing a number of sensor emplacements that were not quite scout-normal, and an over-clocked shield generator that was more in line with a warrior or a guardian class.

Bumblebee looked momentarily confused by the description and interaction. Only so much social coding and, especially, humor, could be programmed into a new mech, and considering that Bumblebee had been allowed to develop his core code without outside interference, a major task for his cohort would be helping him to learn to interact with others. However, the smile that appeared on the expressive faceplates indicated that the newest member of the cohort would be socially astute.

"The cohort records I've downloaded indicate that 'nannybot' is a function more often assigned to Ironhide," Bumblebee said, sounding completely innocent about the pronouncement.

That made the laugh tumble out of Jazz. "He's gonna fit right in!" the spy-master promised the rest of his cohort even as Ironhide spluttered and tried to find a rejoinder.

"At least he consulted data first," Prowl added to that.

"He'll have enough data of his own to prove it, soon enough," Ratchet added, deeply pleased with the results of his scans and seeing the new mech get one on that pain in his circuits. "Bumblebee, you have a great deal of complex function coding that I'm sure you are going to wish to explore and integrate complimentary modules to. Make sure you don't get so involved in downloading that you forget to fuel and recharge, which you should do on a frequent basis as your systems adjust and integrate."

Optimus Prime took note of the informational data Ratchet provided him, trying to place the function of this new member. He realized rapidly that Bumblebee did not solidly slide into any class function. He overlapped several, in fact, based on sheer physical design and the coding present. "We'll show you to your quarters, Bumblebee," he said warmly, as the connections were released so the new mech could rise and try out his motor functions.

The new mech did so, standing slightly taller than Jazz. He would likely add some height with the addition of mass and upgrades over time, but would be on the tall side for a minibot and the short side for a warrior-class. His movements were at first slow and cautious as he tested his functions, but he did not stumble or over correct himself as some newly onlined were prone to. He looked around expectantly, his field free and expressive with his curiosity and excitement.

"Do I have to go to my quarters?" he asked. "I'd rather see everything first."

Jazz laughed happily and freely for that curiosity, noting it as definitely a part of himself. "Nah. Come on, and let me give you the tour," he offered.

"Hey, you don't get to monopolize him," Ironhide protested, but it was light-hearted for all the gruff voice.

"You both can come!" Bumblebee said with open enthusiasm, grabbing onto both of them and leading the way toward the door.

Ratchet felt as though his spark was a contradiction of joy and pain at that sight. The world Bumblebee was so keen to explore was not a kind one, yet something in him could not help but to hope that the openness and enthusiasm in their cohort's newest member would be stronger than the ugliness he would face. From the scanning he had done, he could honestly say that the new mech had the best of all of them.

* * *

  
 _Present_

Ironhide had a more complete view of his cohort than ever, but the latest memories made him itch for practical observations. Bumblebee had experienced so much war; was he truly able to accept peace?

With his processor set, the next shift that he was off duty, Ironhide made the drive to Sam's new apartment in town. However, a data ping toward his younger cohort member told him he needed to keep driving, eventually winding up at a park just as dusk truly deepened the colors of the sky. He killed his headlights, pulling in near the lot where Sam was sprawled on the hood of the Camaro. He just watched, approving the quiet sounds of Sam questioning Bee about his life. Apparently, the young human was finally working past the trauma of the war and his part in it. Believing he'd lost Bumblebee had framed his life in a way to understand a little more that his Guardian was part of his soul now.

Ironhide had fully reintegrated his most recent memories - those of Earth and the vorn leading up to their landing. They were the most relevant to the far too limited time he would share with his human charges. He knew that Bumblebee had inherited from him the ancient form of Guardian coding, and that it was quite possible they were the only mechs remaining who had those particular protocols in their unedited form. He also knew what it had meant to Bumblebee the first time Optimus Prime had introduced the scout as the boy's Guardian.

Sam's own youth and immaturity, as well as his terror over the changes that had been made to him by energy released from the AllSpark, had led to a bond that had not developed in the manner it was intended to, and Ironhide had been pained on his cohort's only creation's behalf. Yet he had advised the younger Guardian to persevere, and continue to strengthen the bond between them as best as he was able. His own conversations with Will and Sarah had given him hope that the young human would gain understanding over time of just how precious a gift he'd been given.

It was good to see Sam finally asking his guardian questions rather than doing all of the talking. The elder Guardian's spark spun faster with warmth and pride to hear the younger answering in his own voice, restored by the AllSpark's energies and now renewed by the contact his own spark had recently had with the one who was a vessel of some of those energies.

Ironhide was anxious to share with Bumblebee, to have more of his memories restored of the mech who duplicated the most important part of his core code. But watching and quietly listening to the two, he could wait and be patient, silently guarding as they engaged in their own form of sharing.

"Are you happy, Bumblebee?" Sam asked in a low tone. "Being here, when you've traveled all over space?"

Bumblebee gave a static-buzz of contentment before responding in the accent he had chosen, Ironhide felt, in a desire to be taken seriously when he chose to actually use his damaged and healing voice. "My cohort is together, we are, quite possibly, at peace for the first time since I onlined. I am fulfilling my core function with a partner whose courage and strength renew my spark. Yes, Sam, this is my home, and I am happy here."

Bumblebee was quiet for a moment, and Ironhide felt the young mech's field pulse with something that made his own spark ache. He wondered if Sam could feel it as well. "I am sorry... that we cost you the opportunity to have a normal life for one of your species. I am most happy when I know that you are not only safe, but also content."

Sam considered that in silence. This whole cohort thing was not easy to handle. It meant still being tied to Mikaela. It meant the Autobots looked at him for answers, because of his tie to Optimus. It meant having someone to lean on, which was nothing like his geeky, outcast life had prepared him for. The flipside of that was being leaned on, and he had never truly felt strong enough for himself, let alone someone else.

"I can handle you." Sam started talking slowly. "I like all of you. It's just I don't know how to be something in a huge family, especially with me and Carly, and you..."

"Sam," Bumblebee interjected softly. "You don't have to be. Even within Cybertronian cohorts, at least during the war, mechs would partner with one member of a larger cohort when, for whatever reasons, they did not wish to be so fully bonded with the larger group. Both Optimus and Ironhide bonded with members of a different cohort. It is enough for me, to be close to you and Carly, as your Guardian. I do not ask more of you than that."

Sam was visibly relieved, but at the same time, he wasn't certain about closing doors either. "For now? Right, because... things change. All of you guys are my friends, and that's not going to change, but maybe... maybe one day, I might be able to fit in. Maybe. Not like promising or anything. Just... It's possible." He'd been born into a family that was odd, and tended to go their own separate ways, often to his relief. While he loved his parents and certain others in the family, he'd definitely grown up thinking too many family members in one place was a catastrophe. And so far, the cohort sounded an awful lot like a new family.

Sam spread his hands, both of them, as open as he could and splayed them against the hood of the alt-form of his best friend. There was a lot more than just friendship in this, and he'd slowly gotten comfortable with the fact Bumblebee needed contact. Sam had even gotten okay with the idea Bumblebee, no longer _just_ his car anywhere in his brain, liked it when he and Carly enjoyed time in the backseat. He concentrated on letting himself feel all the trust and faith he felt for Bee, seeing if he could actually make his friend feel it, the way Mikaela could communicate her stronger emotions to them through her bio-electric signature.

He actually felt a shiver run through plating beneath him, and Bumblebee made a happy warble, followed by a clip of Louis Armstrong singing 'What a Wonderful World' that suggested older, simpler times, though Sam knew he was kidding himself to believe things had ever been simple.

He felt a tingle run through his body, a feeling that in the past had made him tense up, especially when it had come from anyone other than the Camaro. It had reminded him that there was something alien coiled up inside him, something he couldn't control. But this time he simply focused on the sensation itself, and imagined it as an extension of Bumblebee's bright spark, and found himself relaxing into it, accepting the affection for what it was. Not something frightening and alien, but something universal.

"We can do this," Sam told Bumblebee, meaning it all the way into his soul, with all his will. "You, me, Carly... even my two psycho little hero-bots," he said with a half smile for the pair that had crashed the leviathan warship.

Bumblebee bounced a little in a agreement, his spark spinning with the slow warmth of contentment, that all was as it should be. He had a small cohort to watch over and care for, just as he had been sparked to. "Those two did not have the benefit of onlining into a cohort like I did, did not have creators to teach them how to be with others. Yet they still managed to be brave and selfless at the critical moment. It is good they have a cohort of sorts now, Sam," he said, hoping to give his charge a better understanding. A reformat, like what had taken place with the younger twins, might have been a favor to them. They would need to develop and heal in a different way, and being in a place where the AllSpark's energies still coalesced in this dimension was good for them.

"Who did you online with?" Sam asked, having heard that most new mechs formed cohorts with their age-mates, according to the histories he had read over at Jazz's encouragement.

"I was sparked at the same time as several others, including Arcee, but we each were the creation of separate cohorts. I have been fortunate to have had the same cohort since I onlined. I did not lose most or all of my cohort and have to form a new one as so many others did," he explained brightly, then saddened as he thought of Prowl who had been such a patient and kind mentor. "We did lose one... and so easily could have lost Jazz and Ironhide as well," he added, explaining the shift in his field.

Sam's head wrapped around that and then his eyes bugged out. "Wait, wait... they... made you? The rest of the Autobots who first came here with you?" That felt strange and weird in Sam's head, because he equated cohort to some kind of hippie-love nest.

" _Bingo_ ," some other voice called from Bumblebee's vast array of sound clips. "I thought you knew that, Sam," Bumblebee added in a sheepish tone. "They are my creating cohort. I am a Guardian because I integrated part of Ironhide's coding, and have been in Special Operations because of skills I learned and coding I received from Jazz. They are all a part of me."

"O~kay." Sam put a slide in the notes of that word, as he struggled to understand that. He recalled Bumblebee in the hands of human captors, and flinched a little to think of Optimus Prime, if he were any less restrained on retribution. Humanity, himself included, did not know just how lucky they were that the Autobots were led by Prime. "Different culture, different ways," he told himself, having made a solemn promise to Carly that he would work through the issues that kept him from being complete with Bumblebee.

Bumblebee chuckled and bounced again, knowing exactly the sort of thoughts Sam would be having as he attempted to relate his own family structure to something that had similarities, but was, literally, worlds apart. "They aren't my parents, Sam. Ironhide isn't my Ron and Optimus isn't my Judy. More like... older brothers, mentors, and sometimes lovers? I am young, but I was never a child. Only new, and in need of guidance." He wouldn't try to bring up the differences between how he was created and the hatchlings whose development had been entrusted to Megatron. His guardian coding was not pleased with that particular development at all, but outside of Mikaela, no other humans were even aware of the existence of those particular new Cybertronians.

"I'm just going to not think on it, 'kay?" Sam asked him. "At least for now." He stroked the sleek metal of the Camaro. "Too much, too little time to think it through, ya know?"

"Of course, Sam," Bumblebee said with soft assurance. "It is understandable that it would seem strange to you." It was strange to Bumblebee to know that no others would be created as he had been, and that if his cohort was to create again, the new lives would be far more vulnerable. That thought made something in his own spark tighten, his base code kicking up a notch at the prospect of protecting beings so small and in need of so much guidance. He hoped he would have the opportunity to do so.

"Cool." Sam closed his eyes, relaxing fully against the car. "I'm sure we're strange to you." He knew his own kind were strange enough to him sometimes, after all.

Bumblebee thought on that for a moment, considering Jazz's theories on just how much the presence of Cybertronians and their technology on this world had influenced the dominant species, far beyond the technology they had backwards engineered while they had held Megatron in captivity. "Not nearly as strange as you might imagine, Sam," he said, enveloping him in his field once more, finding the ever-growing connections between Sam's bio-energy and his own that should not have existed according to most scientific understandings, but did, and not just because Sam teeked so strongly of the AllSpark.

"Well, we're strange together, right?" Sam teased lightly, before he stretched. "Ought to get back to Carly."

Bumblebee didn't respond with words, but simply opened his driver side door and revved his engine in invitation, eager to experience the mingling of those particular bio-energies once again, and to find new ways to weave them together with his own. He pinged Ironhide, well aware of his mentor's quiet presence at the other end of the lot.

::I have memories for you,:: he teased, adding several saucy and suggestive glyphs to the transmission, knowing just what memories Ratchet had shared with Ironhide most recently via the always active chatter along the cohort bands.

::You have a ward to care for right now,:: Ironhide told him with affection. ::But soon, little Buzzer.::

::Very soon,:: Bumblebee agreed, flashing his headlights as he raced out of the parking lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * _(from Femme) I recently read a story in which Bumblebee's designation came from a class of flying insectoids that tended the crystal gardens, but I cannot, for the life of me remember where. I want to ask permission/give credit on it, so if you know, please let me know. Also, going with the idea that Bee's "lack of mouth" is actually a mask. I tend to imagine him with more of a "War for Cybertron" look, personally._


	10. Epilogue - Lumos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ironhide broods and is comforted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Content Notification:** Non-explicit tactile intimacy, refs. non explicit intimacy between a mech and human characters.

_Lumos - Creates Light_

Ironhide knew, both from his own recent experience and from the memory shares, that brooding was something better left to Optimus, and occasionally Ratchet when the medic got his circuits in a knot. Even then, it could not be allowed to go on for very long. Ironhide's answer to the emotional complications that led to such behavior involved either the firing range, sparring, or facing one or several of his lovers until they all forgot their designations (not to mention whatever they might be brooding about). Perhaps all three if necessary.

Nonetheless, though he would gruffly deny if pressed, he was currently brooding. Perhaps this new, broodier self was yet another sign of the changes that had taken place in his reformat, changes that still had him, on brief occasions, doubting what he had been so certain of when he had formally adopted his previous designation. 

Regardless of the cause, he was displeased to find that shooting targets with Will on the back forty had not settled the recurring loop in his processors. Nor had the time spent with Will and Sarah 'renewing his vows', as Mikaela cheekily termed it.

There was an unspoken urgency in strengthening all of his bonds, whether in the midst of memory shares or otherwise. The more memories he gained, the more Ironhide became cognizant of loss, and realized there were good reasons for the older memory protocols of his class. Not that he would ever go back to coding that forced him to store so much externally. 

The firewall system, protocols, and quantum memory core Ratchet and Wheeljack had developed for those who fought as warriors (an upgrade likewise added to his present frame after he had affirmed his Guardian function) allowed him to go into battle without concern that memory loops and other distracting data flashes would interfere in his ability to perform his function. Should he suffer the actual agonizing loss of a bond during battle, as he had with Jazz in Mission City, he would not falter, thanks to those protocols.

But after the battle was done he could recall vividly the need to feel again, to remember for the sake of his own spark. Long ago, he had connected to his external core to do so. Later, Ratchet, with his multiple cores and massive storage capacity, had held many of his most precious memories in trust for him, sharing what he needed as part of both of their recovery. That had never stopped, even after Ironhide's own upgraded memory core became capable of holding on to what was important without external storage. 

Warriors who failed to feel and remember eventually became what civilians had often accused them of being - killing machines. Ironhide had seen it take place on both sides.

But perhaps this fragile peace was giving him too much time to feel. Though he had not yet integrated the actual memory of Prowl's loss, the emptiness of that broken bond was surfacing with increased frequency when anything in his environment suggested the strategist, whom he ached for despite their apparently having had a complicated and often tense relationship. 

Then there were those recent memories he had reintegrated. The temporary loss of his bond with Jazz activated his guardian protocols in a fierce manner, and that was nothing compared to the horrid hours after the core of their cohort had been deactivated, and he had been forced to briefly contemplate a future without Optimus Prime. The pain he had felt, both times, almost gave him sympathy for Megatron's rejection of bonds as weaknesses and liabilities. In the end, though, it was Megatron whom Ironhide despised for his fear of such connections and the damage that rejection had done to his Prime and their planet.

Were the memories of these losses the reason why the sight of Annabelle, her arm splinted in a cast from a fall from a tree, had his spark spinning fast to ignite near frantic protection protocols? Ironhide knew for a fact that he had been far more impacted by the relatively minor injury than even her parents were. Its faster than usual rate of healing had Ratchet quietly initiating far deeper scans of the humans they were in close contact with. But, regardless of the lengthening taking place in their chromosomal telomeres and other cellular changes happening as a result of the exposure to spark energies and nanites, the reality was that Ironhide would face more empty places in his spark in the very near future, whether that was the next day or several hundred years ahead.

His spark had long known loss, and held deep within it the ache of broken bonds that predated his current cohort. Yet he had been the one to forge ahead and build a cohort around Prime, a web that seemed intent on widening in complexity. The memories showed that he had done this on the basis of what the humans termed 'instinct'. His own kind referred to it as the impulses of the spark, protocols deeper than processors. Sparks were not meant to function in isolation.

::Ironhide?:: Optimus's voice was gentle, that hint of firm 'pay attention to me' in it, yet careful to grant him space to refuse if Ironhide truly needed to.

Ironhide acknowledged the inquiry by pinging his own location and a query for that of his Prime. Regardless of Optimus had in mind, it had to be better than sulking, as Sarah termed the mood. 

Optimus responded with his own location (just crossing into Sherman County on the road from their underground base) along with rendezvous coordinates on a rarely used logging road that bordered the far end of the Lennox property, ending at an old clear cut that overlooked a bend of the Deschutes River. Ironhide again gave his acknowledgement and with the roar of his engines and an encrypted text to Will's phone, was off. He used the drive to attempt to settle his mood, determined to savor any time Optimus had for him in the midst of all of the diplomatic and political hurdles Prime faced making a semi-permanent home for them. 

He transformed and walked the last several hundred yards up the scrub-covered rise to where Prime stood, looking out over the vista. 

"Prime," he said, moving to stand close enough for his own field to brush with Prime's potent one.

"Dwelling on the life you had, or planning the life you live?" Prime asked him, with a small flare of affection through the fields where they overlapped. The leader of the Autobots was quite familiar with the process of weighing the past versus the future.

"There is so little to dwell on," Ironhide admitted, his tone suddenly far more the mechling he had briefly been after his reformat. He leaned into Prime's fields for comfort in a way that had Optimus wistfully recalling the way he used to do the same with his Guardian. "The shares? The little I've integrated? A speck of sand in the desert, as the humans would say, and with the present what it is, won't have the patience to gain most of that back."

Optimus turned and reached out physically, laying a large hand on Ironhide's shoulder. "My friend, you will find the time and will to integrate the memories most needed, I have no doubt. Those you long ago deemed most important, Ratchet carries for you. And you are instrumental in opening new sources of memories that will help us all overcome the scars our memories have layered into our beings." 

"Are the memories even mine?" Ironhide asked, finally giving voice to the question that had repeatedly set him to brooding since the memory shares had begun in earnest. "I was so certain. But, much as I want 'em, the present is too slagging important, and the new bonds, well, I don't want to miss a moment." The words, to Ironhide, were keenly uncomfortable to speak.

Optimus pulled the bulkier mech into place against his frame, bringing his helm down to Ironhide's. "The memories will be there. The memories you make now, no matter how short they may be, are how those we lose will live on for as long as we do. You cannot measure the now you have with those we love against the timespan we each might have. To do so is madness, Ironhide. And... as nearly losing you, nearly losing Jazz, and losing all the others I ever cared for or knew has told me to embrace the present fully, and save the remembering for the quiet spaces between."

"It was madness to bond with these humans in the first place," Ironhide grumbled, even as he relaxed into the larger frame, his transformation sequences automatically smoothing the surfaces to bring them into closer contact. His words were at odds with the gratitude for all of his connections that clearly pulsed through their bonds, no matter how painful the loss of one was. That any of them still functioned with a degree of sanity, after so much loss, was a testament to the healing power of those bonds that remained. 

"As it may seem, but I feel our future is caught and held by the lessons we learn from the new alliances we forge with them, both intimately and politically," Optimus soothed him, digits curving to catch and hold in the gaps of Ironhide's back plates.

"My files may still be mostly empty, but I know forging new connections has never steered you wrong," Ironhide agreed, his thoughts again turning toward the fragile new connections that Optimus had insisted on despite most of his cohort's initial objections. He could not waste the present brooding on what was to come, any more than he could spend it integrating what he had forgotten. Either one robbed him of vital time to make the memories he was now writing into his permanent storage.

"And I learned that from you," Optimus quietly acknowledged, sending along their bonds impressions of Ironhide comforting the lonely young mech Optimus had been.

"So easy to take these gifts from all of ya," Ironhide said, voice gruff, but his fields eased some, seeing the overly young innocence in that memory of Prime. "But... it's not all joy, and I caught the fact it tears you all up when I prod at things you've had time to let fade into the past that hurt like the Pits."

Optimus sighed softly at that, a gentle huff of air through his intakes. "It is true. But... perhaps, in remembering and reliving the pain, we will strive all the harder to shield our new friends from ever knowing such pain as we have experienced."

"Hmm, perhaps," Ironhide acknowledged, though inwardly he vowed to go easier on his cohort, and Ratchet especially, when it came to just what memories he pressed for. It was, after all, more important to create new ones within this tentative peace, and not only with the more ephemeral members of his cohort. And with that, he set to moving his own digits along his Prime's frame without any demands save those their sparks and systems might presently want and need. If Optimus chose to share a few of those coveted memories along the way, well, it would simply be an added bonus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, once more, to Mmouse15 for being the inspiration for this story thanks to her generous donation in the fandomaid auction and the wonderful prompt she gave after winning. Thank you to everyone who reads these words we offer, and especially all who have offered in return their kudos, favorites, story alerts, and feedback. It is like wind in our sails. 
> 
> Just a reminder, this storyverse continues with the Decepticons' tale in [To Build a Future](http://archiveofourown.org/series/9254), by Merfilly and [ Future in the Making](http://archiveofourown.org/series/13795) by both of us. For those who wanted to know more about Prowl (like femme does!), you might want to keep an eye or optic on Merfilly's Ao3 profile for a different auction story related to this one that she is currently working on.
> 
> ETA She posted it! (Watch Femme squee!) See _Becoming Whole_ listed in _Works Inspired by This One_.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Becoming Whole](https://archiveofourown.org/works/329858) by [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly)
  * [Twin Fates](https://archiveofourown.org/works/223838) by [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly)
  * [Priority Messages](https://archiveofourown.org/works/333195) by [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly)
  * [Anchorage](https://archiveofourown.org/works/363152) by [femme4jack](https://archiveofourown.org/users/femme4jack/pseuds/femme4jack)




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